UNT Women Earn Historic Ranking, Cox Ranked 13th

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. - The North Texas women's golf team earned its best Golfstat national ranking in program history, and senior Lauren Cox ended the fall portion of the schedule ranked 13th nationally.

UNT, whose previous high ranking in program history was No. 50 in 2010-11, checked in at No. 21 in the first set of rankings released for the 2020-21 season on Tuesday. That ranking came after a stellar fall schedule for the Mean Green, who competed almost exclusively against Big 12 competition, including several highly ranked programs.

UNT competed at Oklahoma's, Texas' and Oklahoma State's host tournaments over the span of a few weeks and fared well against strong competition, finishing fourth of 11 teams at the season-opening Schooner Fall Classic in Norman, Oklahoma. In that tournament, UNT shot an opening-round 281, which broke the program record for low round. At the Betsy Rawls Invitational in Austin, junior Katie Finley also broke the program record for low round when she shot a 65 and led the Mean Green to a 5-under-par 283 to tie the program record for low team score in relation to par.

Earlier this fall, North Texas had a banner day for the program when Golfweek magazine released its initial rankings and had UNT ranked sixth nationally, while Cox was ranked No. 7. But the Golfstat rankings carry much more weight because it is the poll the NCAA uses to determine which teams receive at-large bids to the NCAA tournament.

"We are certainly pleased to see ourselves ranked in the top 25 in the Golfstat rankings," UNT head coach Michael Akers said. "Our goal is to have an NCAA at-large bid secured when we travel to the conference championship in April. Our fall play and strength of schedule has put us in a good position."

Of the teams UNT competed against in the fall, seven are ranked in the top 25. In competition, the Mean Green beat No. 14 Texas Tech (twice), No. 20 Texas, No. 10 Oklahoma State, No. 23 Kansas State and No. 22 TCU.

From an individual standpoint this fall, Cox continued her torrid pace of becoming the most decorated golfer in program history. She recorded top-10 finishes in all three events the team played, highlighted by a T-3rd showing in Norman, and she earned two Conference USA Golfer of the Week honors. In nine rounds this fall, Cox has compiled a scoring average of 71.77 and had a low round this fall of 67 at the Cowgirl Classic.

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Lauren Cox

Katie Finley

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