Duke Women's Golf Opens NCAA East Regional In Fourth Place

May 9, 2002

BATON rOUGE, LA. - The top-ranked Duke women's golf team opened the NCAA East Regional with a 291 on Thursday and is in fourth place heading in to Friday's second round at the Par 72, 6,726 yard University Club in Baton Rouge, La.

Leading the competition is Florida with a two-under-par round of 286 with Auburn (287), South Florida (289), Duke (291), Wake Forest (293), North Carolina (294), Vanderbilt (296), Louisiana State (297), Furman (298) and South Carolina (298) rounding out the top 10.

Duke was led by sophomore Leigh Anne Hardin (Martinsville, Ind.) and senior Candy Hannemann (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), who each fired one-under-par rounds of 71 on day one. Hannemann came on strong during the final nine with a team-best three birdies, but a double-bogey on hole 12 held Hannemann to a 71. Each are tied 11th in the individual competition.

Junior Kristina Engstrom (Djursholm, Sweden) turned in a 74 on Thursday, but was two-under-par heading to the 15th hole before suffering bogies at numbers 15 and 16 and a double-bogey on 18 to close out the round. Engstrom is tied for 28th individually. Sophomore Virada Nirapathpongporn (Bangkok, Thailand) and freshman Niloufar Aazam-Zanganeh (Lausanne, Switzerland) finished with a 75 and 76, respectively.

In a three-way lead in the individual competition is Meredith Duncan (LSU), Jameica Duncombe (South Florida) and Beth Lever (North Carolina) with a four-under-par round of 68.

Teams will begin teeing off at 7:30 AM on Friday for the second round.

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Duke Individual Scores

Leigh Anne Hardin 35-36=71
Candy Hannemann 36-25=71
Kristina Engstrom 35-39=74
Virada Nirapathpongporn 37-38=75
Niloufar Aazam-Zanganeh 37-39=76