O’BRIEN NIT: Bruins Open Golf Season in Prestigious Invitational at Notre Dame Course

NEWBERG, Ore. – With a No. 7 pre-season national ranking in hand, the George Fox University Bruins will open the 2012-13 season by joining several other nationally-prominent women’s golf teams for the O’Brien National Invitational Tournament Sunday-Monday, Sept. 16-17, at the Warren Golf Course on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.

The O’Brien Invitational, hosted by St. Mary’s College of Notre Dame, Ind., a suburb of South Bend, is now in its fourth year and annually brings together some of the finest female golfers and teams from the NCAA Division III.  Included in this year’s field are 10 teams ranked in top 15 of the Golf World / National Golf Coaches Association pre-season poll, all of whom finished in the top 15 in last year’s D-III National Tournament.  The tournament is made possible through the generosity of Tim and Diane and their daughter Katie, a member of the St. Mary’s Class of 2008.

The top three-ranked teams in the nation - #1 Methodist University, #2 DePauw University, and #3 Centre College - headline the list of teams this year.  Methodist won its 15th consecutive national title last spring.  Other participants include #5 Washington University-St. Louis, #6 University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, #8 Gustavus Adolphus College, #12 Allegheny College, #14 Whitman College, and #15 and host St. Mary’s.

Play is scheduled to tee off at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (10:00 a.m. Pacific) on Sunday and 8:30 a.m. Eastern (5:30 a.m. Pacific) on Monday.  The official tournament website can be found at http://www3.saintmarys.edu/golf/archives/obrien-national-invitational.

George Fox is coming off a 2011-12 campaign in which they compiled a 74-23 record, won six of their 12 tournaments, captured a share of their third straight Northwest Conference title, and placed seventh in the National Championship Tournament in Angola, Ind., their highest finish ever in three consecutive national appearances.

Leading the Bruins into the new season is senior Kelsey Morrison, a First Team All-American who was the runner-up in balloting for the National Player of the Year.  Also back for the Bruins are All-West Region and All-NWC sophomore Megan McGrew, senior Abby Mann, and sophomores Loreece Magsanide and Whitney Jammerman.  The Bruins will be without All-NWC golfer Jill Westendorf, who left school to get married, but three talented freshmen - Kiana Lumanlan from Hilo, Hawai’i, Melissa Nugent from Riverside, Calif., and Hailey Ostrom from Bend, Ore. - will make their Bruin debuts this year.

MaryJo McCloskey enters her seventh season as the only coach the Bruins’ program has known with a record of 292-111-1 (.724).