St. John's University Athletics
Red Storm Opens Season At Tignanelli Towson Invitational
9/8/2012 12:00:00 AM | Women's Golf
QUEENS, N.Y. - The St. John's women's golf team will begin its 2012-13 season on Sunday as it travels to the Tignanelli Towson Invitational at Towson Golf and Country Club in Towson, Md. The two-day tournament will feature an 18-team field as part of Baltimore's college golf weekend.
The Johnnies come into the season after winning two tournaments in 2011-12, the Richmond Spider Invitational and the Spider Spring Intercollegiate. This will be the second-straight year that the Red Storm will be starting the fall campaign at Towson's event, finishing third at the 2011 Towson Women's Invitational.
The field for this year's event includes Bethune-Cookman, Central Connecticut State, Delaware, Delaware State, Fairfield, Fairleigh Dickinson, Hampton, Hartford, Hofstra, LIU, Mount St. Mary's, Quinnipiac, Randolph-Macon, William & Mary, St. John's, defending champion Old Dominion and host-Towson.
Seniors
A trio of seniors in Mariana Barrios, Jennifer Neville and Sebin Kim will be looking to lead the Red Storm to its second BIG EAST title under head coach Ambry Bishop.
Neville, who saw her first competitive action for St. John's after transferring from South Florida and sitting out 2010-11, was consistently a top finisher in her junior year, recording three top-10 finishes and three more appearances in the top-15. She finished 35th at the Towson event last fall, but rebounded for 12th place finishes at both the Richmond Spider Invitational and the Rutgers Women's Invitational.
In the spring she posted her first top-10 as a member of the Johnnies, tying for 6th at the C&F Bank Intercollegiate. She followed that up with a tie for third at the Spring Spider Invitational before recording her third top-10 in a four-tournament span with a tie for ninth at the Brown Invitational. Neville closed out her year with a tie for 14th at the BIG EAST Championship.
Kim was also a strong contributor for St. John's, playing in 10 events with a pair of top-20 finishes. Her best event came as she helped the Red Storm to the Richmond Spider Invitational title as she finished in a tie for 18th. During the second round in Richmond, Kim posted a 74 for her best round of the year.
Barrios competed in four events for the Red Storm, with her best finishes coming at the Towson Women's Invitational and the Ball State Cardinal Classic, where she tied for 35th.
Juniors
The Red Storm junior class also boasts a talented trio in Harin Lee, Stephanie Eybers and Rachel Carpenter, a transfer from Arkansas.
Lee comes into the 2012-13 season with the most decorated resume in Red Storm history after just two years of college golf. The 2011 BIG EAST Champion and BIG EAST Freshman of the Year expanded on her STJ career wins record, adding two more titles in the 2011-12 season to give her a total of five. She comes into the Tignanelli Towson Invitational as the defending champion after being named to Golf Digest's 50 Women's Players To Watch.
Eybers is the third-lowest scoring returner for St. John's, boasting an 80.32 stroke average in 2011-12, when she posted three top-15 finishes. Her best result came as she tied for eighth at the Richmond Spider Invitational. At last year's Towson Women's Invitational, Eybers tied for 18th to start off the season.
Carpenter will be playing her first season for St. John's. During the 2010-11 season, she recorded an 82 stroke average through six rounds of play after redshirting her first year. Prior to Arkansas, Carpenter was a two-time qualifier for the U.S. Girl's Junior Championship and was the youngest player ever to win the SJGT Tournament of Champions at age 13.
Sophomores
A duo of sophomores in Cameron Lambertson and Brittany Hurst will help bolster the Red Storm lineup in 2012-13. Lambertson competed in both the Towson Women's Invitational and the Hoya Invitational, competing as an individual in both events, finishing tied for 57th and tied for 55th respectively.
The Schedule
After the Tignanelli Towson Invitational the Red Storm will host its first-ever tournament as the St. John's women's Intercollegiate will be held Sept. 17-18 at Eisenhower Park Golf Course. The Johnnies will the head to the Rutgers Women's Invitational from Oct. 5-6 before closing out the fall slate at the Lehigh Invitational from Oct. 19-21.
Live stats for the Tignanelli Towson Invitational will be available on Golfstat.com. For all the latest news on the Red Storm as it begins the fall campaign, log on to RedStormSports.com and follow the team (@STJ_WomensGolf) on Twitter. You can join the conversation with the hashtag, #stjwg.
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