Sept. 21, 2012

OXFORD, Miss. - The Ole Miss women's golf team will play in its second tournament of the fall season when the team travels to Colorado to play in the Golfweek Conference Challenge Sept. 24-26 at Red Sky Golf Course.

"It's an honor to represent the SEC and this is our second year playing at this gorgeous facility," head coach Michele Drinkard said.  "There is a certain pride playing in this tournament, like playing for your country. We are playing for Ole Miss and it's really fun to be the only SEC team out there and represent the conference."

Ole Miss' five-some for the tournament are Abby Newton, Alison Hovatter, Ericka Schneider, Kathryn Fowler and Haley Sanders.  Newton, Hovatter, Schneider and Sanders all competed in the Rebels' first tournament in Charleston, S.C., while Fowler will be competing in her first tournament of the year.

This year's 18-team field for the Golfweek Conference Challenge includes teams from 18 conferences including the Pac 12, SEC, ACC and Big 12.  Teams include Denver, Oklahoma, Pepperdine, South Florida, San Jose State, Nebraska, UCLA, Missouri State, Mississippi, Tulsa, Campbell, Florida State, Texas-San Antonio, East Tennessee State, Furman, San Diego State, UC Davis and Georgia State.

The field includes two top-25 teams from Golfweek's final rankings from the 2012 spring season, No. 1 UCLA and No. 25 Oklahoma. 

"In getting ready for the Golfweek Conference Challenge out in Vail, one of the things I wanted to see more of is high, lofted pitch shots," Drinkard said.  "For this tournament, the grass will be lush with bent-grass greens and bent-grass fairways so we needed to work on a lot higher pitch shots. For the last seven days we've really worked on getting the ball up in the air and landing it a little bit softer and the team has done great with it."

Ole Miss opened its fall season Sept. 9-11 with a top-15 finish at the Cougar Classic in Charleston, S.C.

Fans can follow all the action at golfstat.com which can be found on the team's tournament central page by clicking here. Information will also be posted on the Ole Miss Women's Golf Twitter page, @OleMissWGolf and on Facebook at Facebook.com/OleMissWGolf.