The No. 9 University of Arkansas women’s golf team fired a second consecutive 8-under 280 and added a stroke to its lead at the NCAA Las Vegas Regional on Tuesday.
Junior Kendal Todd, a former UNLV golfer, shot a 66 on one of her former home courses to join Arkansas teammates Kajal Mistry and Maria Jose Marin in the top five at the 6,665-yard Spanish Trail Country Club course 6 miles from the Vegas Strip.
The Razorbacks, who got eagles from Marin and sophomore Reagan Zibilski, tied sixth seed Purdue for the day’s best round and lead the Boilermakers (12 under) by four shots heading into the final round Wednesday.
“I’d love to get a third day of an 8 under,” Arkansas Coach Shauna Taylor said. “Again, I think an absolute team effort.”
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Top seed and No. 4 UCLA carded a 5 under and sits in third place at 2 under. No. 19 Florida State (1 under), the regional’s fourth seed, is also under par, followed by Baylor (2 over), second-seed Arizona (5 over), Oklahoma (5 over) and California (14 over) in the top eight.
The top five finishers in the six NCAA regionals will comprise the 30-team field for the NCAA Championships on May 17-22 in Carlsbad, Calif.
Colorado State is in ninth place at 16 over, followed by Kent State (18 over), Dartmouth (35 over) and Xavier (36 over).
Florida State sophomore Lottie Woad, the ACC player of the year and winner of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur last month, shot 5-under 67 to take the lead by a stroke over Mistry, who shot 3 under Tuesday.
UCLA’s Zoe Campos had the day’s best round with a 65 to reach 7 under and third place. Marin and Todd are tied at 5 under.
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Mistry, the first-round leader, had four birdies Tuesday and carded her first bogey of the regional on the par-3 14th.
Marin opened her round with an eagle on the 365-yard first hole by holing a wedge from 86 yards then played the rest of her round at 1 over, with a birdie on the par-5 eighth countered by bogeys on 7 and 14.
Todd’s 66 featured four birdies on the front nine called “Canyon,” and three birdies on the “Lakes” back nine offset by only one bogey on 7.
“I can’t say enough about Kendall Todd today,” Taylor said. “She made some amazing clutch putts and she scrambled when she needed to scramble. It was a pleasure to watch. Then Kajal, great job again playing in the 1 spot for us. … [Marin] eagling her first hole and kind of holding it steady coming in. Just across the board, great teamwork.
“We’ve got one more day to go on this business trip and hopefully put ourselves in a good position.”
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Arkansas senior Miriam Ayora had the final counting score with a 2-over 74 that featured three birdies and five bogeys. She is in a tie for 25th place.
Zibilski had an adventurous round of 76 capped by her 10-foot eagle putt on the 510-yard 18th after she carded five bogeys, a double bogey and one birdie on the first 17 holes. Zibilski is tied for 44th place.
The Razorbacks will tee off on No. 1 at 10 a.m. Central in the final round Wednesday with Purdue and UCLA.
HOUSTON — As the Houston area works to clean up and restore power to hundreds of thousands after deadly storms left at least seven people dead, it will do so amid a smog warning and rising temperatures that could pose health risks.
National Weather Service meteorologist Marc Chenard said on Saturday that highs of about 90 degrees were expected through the start of the coming week, with heat indexes likely approaching 100 degrees by midweek.
“We expect the impact of the heat to gradually increase … we will start to see that heat risk increase Tuesday into Wednesday through Friday,” Chenard said.
The heat index is what the temperature feels like to the human body when humidity is combined with the air temperature, according to the weather service.
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“Don’t overdo yourself during the cleanup process,” the weather service’s Houston office said in a post on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
The Houston Health Department said it would distribute 400 free portable air conditioners to area seniors, people with disabilities and caregivers of disabled children to contend with the heat.
Five cooling centers also were opened — four in Houston and one in Kingwood.
The widespread destruction of Thursday’s storms brought much of Houston to a standstill. Thunderstorms and hurricane-force winds tore through the city, and a tornado touched down near the northwest Houston suburb of Cypress.
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More than a half-million homes and businesses in Texas remained without electricity by midday Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us. Another 21,000 customers were also without power in Louisiana, where strong winds and a suspected tornado hit.
CenterPoint Energy, which has deployed 1,000 employees to the area and is requesting 5,000 more, said power restoration could take several days or longer in some areas, and that customers need to ensure their homes can safely be reconnected.
“In addition to damaging CenterPoint Energy’s electric infrastructure and equipment, severe weather may have caused damage to customer-owned equipment” such as the weatherhead, which is where power enters the home, the company said.
High-voltage transmission towers that were torn apart and downed power lines pose a twofold challenge for utility companies because the damage affected transmission and distribution systems, according to Alexandria von Meier, a power and energy expert who called that a rare thing. Damage to just the distribution system is more typical, von Meier said.
Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez reported late Friday that three people died during the storm, including an 85-year-old woman whose home caught fire after being struck by lightning and a 60-year-old man who had tried to use his vehicle to power his oxygen tank.
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Houston Mayor John Whitmire previously said at least four other people were killed in the city when the storms swept through Harris County, which includes Houston.
School districts in the Houston area canceled classes Friday for more than 400,000 students and government offices were closed.
Houston Independent School District Superintendent Mike Miles said Saturday that he hoped to reopen schools on Monday, but that is dependent upon the restoration of electricity in school buildings.
In light of the storm damage, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Whitmire both signed disaster declarations, paving the way for state and federal storm recovery assistance.
A separate disaster declaration from President Joe Biden makes federal funding available to people in seven Texas counties that have been affected by severe storms, straight-line winds, tornadoes and flooding since April 26.
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Information for this article was contributed by Jamie Stengle, Valerie Gonzalez and Lisa Baumann of The Associated Press.
A crane sits on top of a cement truck, Friday, May 17, 2024, in Houston, at an address where authorities say a man was killed when a crane fell on the cement truck he was sitting in during the previous night’s storm. (Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Power transmission lines were twisted and toppled after powerful storms swept through the Houston area on Saturday, May 18, 2024 in Cypress, Texas. As the Houston area works to clean up and restore power to hundreds of thousands, it will do so amid a smog warning and rising Texas heat. (AP photo/Mark Vancleave)
The wall of a tire shop at the intersection of Sowden and Bingle is blown out in the aftermath of a severe storm on Friday, May 17, 2024, in Houston. The widespread destruction brought much of Houston to a standstill as crews raced to restore power and remove uprooted trees and debris. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Fans make their way into Minute Maid Park as a severe thunderstorm hit before a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Houston Astros, Thursday, May 16, 2024, in Houston. (Karen Warren/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Down power lines are shown in the aftermath of a severe thunderstorm Friday, May 17, 2024, in Cypress, Texas, near Houston. Thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas on Thursday killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Cheryl Herpich takes a photograph of a downtown building with blown out windows in the aftermath of a severe thunderstorm Friday, May 17, 2024, in Houston. Thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas on Thursday killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Blown out windows on a high-rise downtown building are shown in the aftermath of a severe thunderstorm Friday, May 17, 2024, in Houston. Thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas on Thursday killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Blown out windows on a high-rise downtown building are shown in the aftermath of a severe thunderstorm Friday, May 17, 2024, in Houston. Thunderstorms pummeled southeastern Texas on Thursday killing at least four people, blowing out windows in high-rise buildings and knocking out power to more than 900,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Carrie Jenkins stands in her living room by the light of her open front door, the only light in her home since losing power the night before in the aftermath of a severe storm, Friday, May 17, 2024 in Houston. (Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)
COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The Arkansas baseball team will play either Alabama or South Carolina first at the SEC Tournament next week in Hoover, Ala.
The Razorbacks (43-12) are the No. 2 seed at the tournament by virtue of winning the SEC West. They will play the second quarterfinal game Wednesday at approximately 1 p.m.
The Crimson Tide and the Gamecocks will play a single-elimination game Tuesday at approximately 1 p.m.
Alabama (33-21) is the No. 7 seed after tiebreakers with four other teams that finished with an SEC record of 13-17. South Carolina (33-21) was also included in the tiebreaker and is the No. 10 seed.
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The Crimson Tide were the highest seeded of the five teams that were tied in the standings. That was because Alabama was the only team to win a series against the highest-seeded common opponent, top-seeded Tennessee.
South Carolina earned the No. 10 seed over LSU due to results against Arkansas. The Gamecocks went 1-2 against the Razorbacks on April 19-20, while Arkansas swept LSU in March.
The Razorbacks defeated South Carolina 2-1 in the series opener in Columbia, S.C. The Gamecocks won 6-3 in the first game of an April 20 doubleheader and Arkansas won the finale 9-6.
Alabama lost 5-3 to the Razorbacks in the series opener. The Crimson Tide won the final two games of the series by scores of 4-3 in 10 innings and 5-0. That series was played in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on April 12-14.
The Arkansas-Alabama-South Carolina grouping will be paired against a grouping of Kentucky-Georgia-LSU in the quarterfinal round.
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The Razorbacks will play at least two games in Hoover. The quarterfinals are a double-elimination round that are scheduled Wednesday through Friday.
The semifinal and final rounds revert to a single-elimination format.
SEC Tournament Schedule
Tuesday (First Round)
Game 1: No. 6 Georgia vs. No. 11 LSU
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Game 2: No. 7 Alabama vs. No. 10 South Carolina
Game 3: No. 8 Vanderbilt vs. No. 9 Florida
Game 4: No. 5 Mississippi State vs. No. 12 Ole Miss
