Racers Tackle Hampton Cove In OVC Championship

Monday, April 20

Huntsville, Ala.

Murray State

Ohio Valley Conference

Photo by: Dave Winder-Murray State Athletics

4/19/2015 2:59:00 AM | Women's Golf

OVC Tournament Central I Live Scoring I Hampton Cove

The Murray State women's golf team heads to the Ohio Valley Conference Championship with eyes to win for the second straight year and post the 10^th title in the history of the program.

The OVC season-ending competition will be staged for the first time at Hampton Cove Golf Club in Owens Crossing, Alabama. The course is located in the greater Huntsville area. The 54-hole stroke play championship will be played at the Highlands Course with the winner earning the coveted spot to represent the conference at the NCAA Championship.

Murray State sends a solid lineup to the OVC with three of their five players having played in the event when MSU won the title last spring.

However, it will be a freshman playing from the No. 1 spot when Moa Folke tees it up Monday. Her 76.5 stroke average is tops on the team and seventh in the OVC. Sophomore Jacklyn Van Meter plays from the No. 2 slot for MSU and her stroke average (76.7) is just a tick behind Folke and eighth place in the OVC. Sophomore Minta Yin is in the lineup after playing mostly as an individual this spring. Her top-5 finish last week at the MSU Invitational lowered her average to 78.3. At 77.6, Abbie Stamper plays No. 4 for MSU and is 12^th in the OVC. Sophie Hiller played in the OVC in 2014 and carries a 78.1 averaged into Monday's opening round.

The Racers have developed a winning tradition in OVC Golf under Head Coach Velvet Milkman who is the only coach MSU has ever had since the program was launched in 1993. MSU has posted OVC Championship victories in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, and 2014.

Coming into this OVC Championship, the Racers have six medalist winners including Delaney Howson last spring in 2014. Other Murray State winners include Jenny Daag (1998 & 1999), Cuyler Hedley (2003, Lee Anne Pace (2004) and Nikki Orazine (2005)

Hampton Cove GC is at the northern end of the Alabama's famed Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Renovated in 2008, The Highlands course has been restored to its original Scottish Links design and will play to a par-72 and a length of 6,050 yards for the OVC event.

After Monday's first round, the OVC members will gather for an awards banquet when the annual OVC honors will be announced.

The OVC men's event will be played later in the week (April 24-26) in Muscle Shoals, Ala., at The Shoals GC, another great layout in the RTJ Golf trail.