Hoosiers enter second tournament of season

Starting today and continuing through to tomorrow afternoon, the IU women's golf team will attempt to win its second team tournament of the season when they compete in the Shootout at the Legends event at the Legends of Indiana Golf Club in Franklin.\nNo. 11 Indiana is the top ranked team by Golfweek/Sagarin at this week's 12-team event.\nThe only other top 25 team competing is No. 17 Kent State, which came from behind to beat the Hoosiers at the Lady Northern event in Iowa City, IA, last week.\nIU let a seven-stroke lead with just 18 holes remaining slip away, allowing the Screaming Eagles win the tournament by a score of 895-898.\nThe Hoosiers shot a score of 17 over par through the first seven holes of the final round to dig themselves a hole too deep to get out of.\nEntering the tournament, IU junior Karen Dennison was the No. 1 ranked individual golfer in the nation, but after shooting superb opening rounds of 72 and 68, she fired a 78 in the final round. Those rough final 18 holes kept Dennison from winning her second straight individual tournament and the Hoosiers from capturing their second straight team tournament victory.\nInstead, both Dennison and IU finished in second place.\nThe week before, in the 2002-2003 season opener, Dennison shot a 219 to win the first tournament of her three-year career, the Wolverine Invitational in Ann Arbor, MI. Meanwhile, the Hoosiers shot a 913 to win their first team tournament since the Baylor/Iowa San Antonio Shootout in March of 2001.\nIU has never won the Shootout at the Legends event. As a matter of fact, the Hoosiers have never finished better than fourth place in the event's four-year history.\nIn addition to Dennison, senior Cara Stuckey, juniors Danah Ford, Ambry Bishop, and Mary Lidester, and freshman Molly Redfearn will be on IU's six-player roster.\nBishop, who finished second at the Wolverine Invitational and 15th at the Lady Northern, placed second over the summer at the Indiana State Open, which was held at the Legends of Indiana Golf Club.\nLidester, who did not compete due to illness at the Lady Northern, was IU's top finisher at last year's Shootout at the Legends, firing a sixth-place 220.\nFord is coming off her best tournament of her career at the Lady Northern, where she finished in sixth place with a career-best 224 54-hole score.\nStuckey came in 12th place at the Lady Northern and 11th at the Wolverine Invitational, while Redfearn finished 39th and 23rd respectively at those two events.\nNo. 41st ranked Michigan, who will again compete this week, won last year's Shootout at the Legends with a 290 team score. They defeated second-place Northwestern (No. 45), another competitor this week, by 13 strokes.\nKent State finished third, six strokes ahead of fourth-place Indiana.