RICHMOND, Ky. - Eastern Kentucky University's women's golf team opens its 2000 spring season Monday and Tuesday (Feb. 21-22) in the 36-hole Jo Ann Prentice Lady Blazer Invitational at the Inverness Country Club in Birmingham, AL, hosted by the University of Alabama-Birmingham.

The tourney features 18 holes of play each day. Included in the 15-team field, among others, are Louisville, Southwest Missouri and Tennessee Tech.

"We're looking forward to getting started, even though this will be a quality tournament to open up the spring season," said EKU women's golf coach Joni Stephens. "We're a little rusty, but we've had a chance to get outside a little bit and I think we'll be OK.

"We're still going through qualifying rounds to see who gets to make the trip. We have a unique situation this spring, but a good problem, in that all eight of our young ladies on the team are of nearly equal talent. That is going to make for a lot of competition within our team which will hopefully carry over into tournament play," she added.

Eastern competed in five tournaments this past fall, finishing in the top seven in four of these fields. EKU's best finish was a third-place finish in the 18-team Illinois State University Redbird Classic.