April 30, 2006
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - A pair of 77s from sophomore Seul Ki Park and junior Meghan Naik helped the Illinois women's golf team move past Minnesota and into 10th place Sunday at the Big Ten Championships on the Indiana University Golf Course.
Park ascended 10 places on the leaderboard for the second consecutive day and Naik improved by nine spots in the final round. Intermittently substantial rain could not keep the Orange and Blue from posting more favorable Sunday scores than Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota on a day when no team bettered its third-round total and two schools needed 20 more shots than they took in round three. Overall, Illinois surpassed Minnesota by five strokes and missed ninth-place Wisconsin by six strokes.
Although most teams changed places in the standings, one team did not. Purdue maintained the top position throughout the tournament, ultimately besting Ohio State by six strokes to claim conference supremacy. Led by two freshmen, Maria Hernandez and Christel Boeljon, five Boilermakers finished in the top 13. The conference championship is the team's first since 2000 and ties a school record for most titles in a season (five) set in 1988.
Individually Northwestern's Alice Kim (+3) also held first place from Friday to Sunday. Kim finished a stroke ahead of Michigan State's Sara Brown, Ohio State's Carling Coffing and Hernandez.
Big Ten Championships final results
1. Purdue 290-296-295-298=1179
2. Ohio State 293-297-296-299=1185
3. Michigan State 296-294-293-308=1191
4. Michigan 296-301-298-307=1202
5. Northwestern 297-303-302-310=1212
6. Indiana 300-292-301-321=1214
7. Penn State 303-302-299-311=1215
8. Iowa 301-302-300-320=1223
9. Wisconsin 313-300-314-325=1252
10. ILLINOIS 321-304-314-319=1258
11. Minnesota 311-307-318-327=1263
Illinois results T34. Seul Ki Park 81-78-76-77=312 42. Meghan Naik 84-76-78-77=315 T50. Stephanie Mory 80-76-80-83=319 T54. Casey Burden 78-79-82-84=323 56. Megan Godfrey 82-74-83-85=324 T59. Nancy Featherstone 85-82-80-82=329
