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MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. – Ten women's golf teams, including defending champion Eastern Kentucky University, will begin their quest for the 2014 Ohio Valley Conference Championship on Monday at The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at The Shoals in Muscle Shoals, Ala.  The teams will play 54 holes over three days.
 
The Fighting Joe course at The Shoals has a par of 72 and plays 6,203 yards.  The teams will begin teeing off at 9 a.m. ET from hole No. 1 each day.  EKU will begin teeing off at 11:30 a.m. ET on Monday.
 
"This team is really looking forward to next week," fourth-year head coach Mike Whitson said.  "Practices have been good and I know we are ready to get to Alabama and compete.  It's been a wonderful year and in order to compete next week, we must continue to do the things that have made us successful." 
 
The participating teams include:  Austin Peay, Belmont, Eastern Illinois, Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, Morehead State, Murray State, Southern Illinois Edwardsville, Tennessee State and Tennessee Tech.
 
This is the 21st OVC Women's Golf Championship and only five different teams have won the title.  The event began in 1994.  EKU captured the championship in 1996 and 2013.  Murray State has won the event eight times.  Jacksonville State has five titles.  Tennessee Tech has won four championships.  Morehead State finished first once.
 
"It's going to be a great tournament next week with many good teams competing for an OVC Championship," said Whitson.
 
Colonels have won the individual title five times.  Beverly Brockman brought home the trophy in 1994, 1996 and 1997.  Brittany Klein won it all in 2005.  Last season, Kristen Dorsey's first place finish fueled the team's run to the title.
 
This season, EKU has finished among the top-10 in all 10 of its events.  Eight of those were top-5 finishes.  Eastern won the Kentucky Regional Rivalry over Morehead State, Western Kentucky and Northern Kentucky; the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate and the Colonel Classic. 
 
The five Colonels that will participate in the OVC Championship are sophomores Becky Sharpe, Anna Gleixner and Rachel Welker, and freshmen Sofie Levin and Emilie Simmons.  Levin leads the team with a 75.65 stroke average.  She and Gleixner have each finished first once this season and both have three top-5 performances.
 
At last year's championship, Eastern led by as many as 13 strokes during the final round, but when the final group teed off on the 18th hole, the Colonels were tied with Jacksonville State.  Dorsey's second shot rolled to within 15 feet from the cup.  JSU's Ornella Arrizon missed the green on her approach and then overshot to the other side of the green with her third shot.  Dorsey two-putted to par the hole.  Arrizon's fourth shot was short, giving EKU a one-shot victory.
 
The Colonels started the day with a five shot lead over Morehead State and a seven stroke advantage over Jacksonville State.  EKU (916) carded a final round 308, JSU (917) turned in a 302 and Morehead State a 308.
 
Dorsey (223) began the day tied for first but won by two shots over Tennessee Tech's Madalyn Everts (225).  She carded a final round 74.
 
The OVC Championship has been held at The Shoals once before in 2008.
 
The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at The Shoals is home to two 18-hole championship courses and lies between the Wheeler and Wilson dams on the Tennessee River.  Wheeler Dam is named in honor of General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Wheeler - the only Confederate General to attain the same rank later in the United States Army.

The Fighting Joe course at The Shoals was the first Trail course to break 8,000 yards. Travel + Leisure Golf named Fighting Joe one of the top new courses in 2004.