Feb. 28, 2010
SPOKANE, Wash. - Gonzaga University's women's golf team will tee of the spring season Monday and Tuesday at the Fresno State Lexus Classic hosted by Fresno State University.
The 54-hole tournament - 36 holes Monday and the final round Tuesday - will be played at Copper River Country Club which will play 6,077 yards to par 72. Joining the Bulldogs and the host Bulldogs will be Boise State University, Cal Poly, University of Nevada, Eastern Washington University, Cal State Fullerton, Sacramento State University, San Jose State University, Santa Clara University, Seattle University, UC Davis, UC Irvine and Portland State University. UC Irvine is the defending champion.
Gonzaga head coach Brad Rickel will have freshman Victoria Fallgren playing number one, followed by junior Sage Suffecool, sophomores Jessica Howe and Stephanie Corey and freshman Genna Dodge.
Rickel likes the look of his spring line-up which has a few changes from the fall.
"Victoria worked her way into the number one spot in the last tournament or two last fall," Rickel said. "Sage has been solid and will remain there. Jess and Steph are sort of finding their form this spring after struggling a little bit in the fall. Genna continues to grow and needs lots of experience and is gaining lots of experience," he said.
And it's a young team with one junior, two sophomores and two freshmen, "although the junior and two sophomores are very experienced but still young. If we keep going the direction we're kind of going we won't be too bad," Rickel said.
The third-year head coach looks for his team to make another jump this spring.
"I think they've improved a lot, especially in the conditioning. We were okay in the fall with the exception we just couldn't find a fourth score each day and I don't think we ever had all cylinders going. I think we're ready now," he said. "I'm sure we have a bit of rust to knock off in the first tournament or two but as we do that I think we're finally going to get to playing to our potential which we have not yet done once this year."
The spring schedule is perhaps one of the toughest the Bulldogs have played, which Rickel said shows the program is gaining some respect.
"I think it shows people are starting to see us as legitimate, but it offers a big challenge," he said of the step up in competition. "Fresno is a really good tournament then we go straight to San Jose State which is really big time. It's a big time golf course and a really good program. We definitely are going to get to test ourselves against the best this spring."
The Bulldogs will play in the Juli Inkster Invitational at Almaden Country Club hosted by SJSU next week.
Looking ahead to the West Coast Conference Tournament in six weeks Rickel said it will probably be Pepperdine University and the University of San Francisco battling it out.
"Pepperdine has been in the top 10 all year and USF in the top 25 or 30 all year. We have to keep gaining our experience, taking our young kids and getting as far along in their career as we can," Rickel said of the progress which lies ahead. "If we keep growing, because we are so young, who knows. It's going to be a tall order to compete with Pepperdine and USF this year. That's the good thing about golf. You have to get it in the hole and I think we're well on the way to establishing ourselves as one of the powers in the conference."
