Rees leads Razorbacks

ATHENS, Ga. — University of Arkansas junior Corinna Rees paced the No. 39 Razorback women’s golf team with a first-round 76 at the 38th Annual Liz Murphey Collegiate Golf Championship in Athens, Ga., Friday.

Rees played the front nine even and was four-over on the back nine leading the Razorbacks to a 312 as a team. Arkansas is fifth overall in the field of 23 teams but the Razorbacks are just three strokes behind second-place.

Fourth-ranked Duke leads the field with a 300, followed by a three-way tie between No. 13 Purdue, No. 34 North Carolina and No. 2 Auburn with 310. Arkansas’ 312 is good for fifth with No. 14 Michigan State and No. 6 Florida tied for sixth with 314. There is a two-way tie for eighth-place between No. 21 Ohio State and No. 9 Wake Forest with 315 No. 6 Alabama and No. 11 Tennessee tied with 316 to round out the top 10.

“Wow, what a long day out there today,” Arkansas head coach Shauna Estes-Taylor said. “It was tough out there. The wind was blowing hard, about 25 miles per hour, and made conditions difficult.

“I’m really proud of this group,” Estes-Taylor continued. “I saw some good, positive things out there and a lot of things we can build on. I can’t say enough about Corinna’s round in these conditions. She did a solid job for us today.”

Junior Kelli Shean played well with a 78 and was three over on both the front and back nine. She is tied for 28th overall. Freshman Victoria Vela and senior Kristin Ingram tied for 32nd with 79s, followed by senior href="/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=585102">Tiffany Phelps who is tied for 67th with an 82.

“Everyone just kinda hung in there,” Estes-Taylor said. “It was tough, tough, tough as you can see by the high scores. But we had good energy everyone just hung in there. We’re looking forward to the next two days of competition. We want to minimize the few small mistakes we made today and continue moving forward.”