Posted by Jason Vittone - Tue, May 25, 2010 - [ AMC ] - Viewed 318 times
WWU Sophomore Jada Bennington
WWU Sophomore Jada Bennington

Bennington 11th After Round One at Nationals
(Portions of this release provided by the NAIA)
(RAPID CITY, S.D. May 25)--Sophomore Jada Bennington (Beloit, Wis.) completed her first round of the 16th Annual NAIA Women's Golf National Championships on Tuesday. The championships are taking place May 25 - 28 at Meadowbrook Golf Course in Rapid City, S.D. 

 

Bennington is tied for 11th place after the opening round. She shot a 76 (+4) and is tied with six other golfers. Maegan Rice (University of Mobile) leads after the first day with a 71 (-1). Rice was the only player to shoot under par on Tuesday.

 

Bennington will tee off at 9:20 a.m. on Wednesday.

 

First and second round play will tee off from No. 1 at 7:30 a.m. MDT, followed by an 8 a.m. start from No. 10 on both May 25 and 26. The first round's afternoon session will open off of No. 10 at 12:30 p.m., followed by a 1 p.m. start at No. 1. The second round's afternoon session will get underway at 1 p.m. on both No. 1 and 10.

 

The 129-player championships field is comprised from 14 automatic qualifying teams from NAIA affiliated conferences/unaffiliated groupings and 10 at-large team selections, which are determined using the final Top 25 rating released on May 7. South Dakota School of Mines & Technology qualifies as the host institution.

 

Among the 14 teams bound for Rapid City, four have previously won a national team title. Oklahoma City has five championships to their credit, all in the last five years. British Columbia took home top honors in 2001 and 2004. Southern Nazarene (Okla.) has won the event twice, winning in 1999 and 2002. In 2003, Northwood (Fla.) won its first women's golf crown.


Three individuals, Caitlin Duval of Davenport (Mich.), Lewis-Clark State's (Idaho) Courtney Shrout, Maegan Rice of Mobile (Ala.) earned a spot in the event through automatic qualification. Charlotte Guilleux of Wayland Baptist (Texas) earned an automatic qualification as a returning All-Tournament Team member from 2009. Cumberlands' (Ky.) McKinzie Price and Bennington each earned an at-large berth.

 

This is the second appearance for Bennington at the NAIA National Championships.  She qualified with the WWU women's team last year and finished 33rd individually.  Bennington shot rounds of 84, 82, 80, and 77 (+35) last year on the same course.

 

Bennington was the 2009 American Midwest Conference Freshman of the Year.  She was the 2010 AMC Player of the Year and All-AMC recipient.

 

You can follow the scoring live at the NAIA Women's Golf web page. The site will also list tee times, individual and team results and a daily recap of each round.