Women's Golf Opens Season Monday At Washington State
9/14/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
Sept. 14, 2008
SPOKANE, Wash. - Gonzaga University women's golf team will tee off the 2008-09 season Monday and Tuesday at the Inland Northwest Dodge Dealers Invitational hosted by Washington State University.
The 54-hole event - 36 holes Monday and 18 Tuesday beginning at 7:30 a.m. both days - will be the inaugural collegiate tournament at the new Palouse Ridge Golf Club on the WSU campus. The course, which opened in August, will be a 6,142-yard, par 71 layout for the tournament.
Joining Gonzaga and WSU in the 10-team field will be Boise State University, the University of Montana, University of Nevada, University of Portland, Portland State University, Sacramento State University and Seattle University.
Gonzaga second-year head coach Brad Rickel will have all 10 players on his roster participate.
Rickel returns eight letterwinners who will be joined by two freshmen this season.
Sophomores Rachel Sibbitt and Sage Suffecool helped pace the Bulldogs at last spring's West Coast Conference Championship. Sibbitt tied for 11th and Suffecool tied for 19th. Elizabeth Jarrett returns for her senior season after finishing 24th in the WCC Championship as a junior.
But the veteran-laden roster doesn't end there. Seniors Katie Gumke and Lauren Phillips, junior Anna Friedhoff, sophomore Lauren Reynolds and redshirt sophomore Lauren Bierley give Rickel plenty of depth.
They will be joined by freshmen Stephanie Corey of Burien, Wash., and Jessica Howe of Poway, Calif.
Plus, Rickel gets the advantage of seeing all 10 players in tournament action the first two tournaments of the season. After playing at WSU, the Bulldogs will host the Bulldogs and Eagles Invitational next Monday and Tuesday at The Links in Post Falls.
"These first two tournaments will give me a unique opportunity to evaluate the entire team for 108 holes prior to having to determine a travel squad," Rickel said. "That will be better than playing qualifying rounds, which these two tournaments, in essence, end up being."
Rickel, who was the head men's and women's coach at Gonzaga during the 1998-99 season, said the team is ahead of last season when he returned to the Bulldogs after eight years at the University of Idaho.
"Last year we were getting to know each other," Rickel said. "Golf is such a mental discipline that it takes a while for the coach to really know the players and for the players to really know the coach. We don't have that this year. We know each other and are looking forward to a strong season."
