Live Scoring  |  First Round Pairings

OWENS CROSS ROADS, Ala. – Eastern's women's golf team has finished among the top three teams at each of the last seven Ohio Valley Conference Championships, including first in 2013, 2015 and 2016.  The Colonels will look for their fourth title in eight tries when the 2021 championship begins Sunday at Hampton Cove on the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Owens Cross Roads, Alabama.
 
The three-day, 54-hole event will be contested on the par 72, 6,025-yard Highlands Course at Hampton Cove.
 
The Colonels won the OVC Championship in 2013 by one shot over Jacksonville State.  Eastern placed second in 2014, two shots back.  The Colonels edged Jacksonville State by one shot again in 2015.  In 2016, EKU beat the field by 18 strokes and set what were at the time new OVC Championship records for 54-hole total of 888 and team tournament scoring average at 296.00.
 
In 2017, Murray State and Eastern began the final round separated by just three shots but the Racers pulled away over the final 18 for a 10-shot victory.  In 2018, EKU posted a third place finish.  The last time the event was held, in 2019, the Colonels placed second.
 
In addition to winning three of the previous seven titles, Eastern Kentucky also captured the OVC Championship in 1996.
 
The OVC Women's Golf Championship was previously held at Hampton Cove from 2015-17.  The event was scheduled to be at the course last year before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the season.  Hampton Cove, the northern gateway to the Trail, is a 54-hole facility with terrain that drastically changes from one side of the property to the other.  Renovated in 2008, The Highlands course has been restored to its original Scottish Links design.
 
The first round will begin at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday.  The Colonels will begin teeing off at 10:30 a.m. ET.  The eight-team field includes: Austin Peay, Belmont, Eastern Illinois, Eastern Kentucky, Jacksonville State, Morehead State, Murray State and Tennessee Tech. 
 
Competing for Eastern this year are graduate student Diana McDonald, seniors Vilma Efraimsson and Ragnhildur Kristinsdottir, junior Bailey Hubbard and sophomore Elisa Orduna Shackleton.  Three of those five rank among the top 10 in the OVC in scoring average.  No other team has more than two players in the top-10. 
 
Kristinsdottir leads the team and the conference with a 73.0 scoring average, one-tenth of a point from being a full two strokes lower than the second ranked player.  The Reykjavik, Iceland native posted back-to-back first place finishes at the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate and the Colonel Classic.  She opened the season in February with a second place performance at the Amelia Island Collegiate.  Eight of her 15 rounds this season have been at par or better. 
 
McDonald ranks third in the OVC with a 75.2 scoring average.  In five events this season, the native of Kingston, Ontario has posted three top-10 finishes, including a season-best fourth at the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate.
 
Bailey is 10th in the league with a 76.9 scoring average.  Shackleton (77.3) ranks 13th and Efraimsson (77.6) is 16th in the OVC.
 
Under third-year head coach Mandy Moore the Colonels finished in the top 10 in four of their five events this season, including first place finishes at the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate and the Colonel Classic. 
 
As a team, EKU leads the conference with a 301.6 stroke average.  Jacksonville State is second at 303.8 and Morehead State is third at 305.1.  Jacksonville State is ranked 108th in the nation by Golfstat, while Eastern Kentucky is 117th.