Wolves shoot SAC-record 294 behind Castro's career low for first round lead at Rendleman

SALISBURY, N.C. - The Newberry Wolves women's golf team fired a South Atlantic Conference-record 294 to take a commanding 14-stroke lead after the first round the Patsy Rendleman Invitational at the par 72, 5,998-yard Country Club of Salisbury on Monday.

The 294 breaks the previous conference record of 295 shared by the 2009 Carson-Newman team at the Elite Linen Service Invitational and the 2010 Newberry team at the Pfeiffer Falcon Cup.

The Wolves were led by senior Barbara Castro (Coruna, Spain), who sank a 20-foot putt for birdie on the 18th hole to clinch a career-low 69 to lead the tournament. That score is tied for the second-lowest single round in school and conference history behind Maria Luz Besio's 68 at the 2010 NCAA Division II National Tournament.

Castro was the only player to finish Monday's round under par and led the field with five birdies.

Julia Daneshfar (Trophy Club, Texas) sits in fourth place with a 2-over par 74, carding 12 pars on the day. Natalia Perez (Bogota, Colombia) is tied for fifth after tying her career low round with a 3-over par 75 with 13 pars. Eline Askeland (Oslo, Norway) is tied for eighth with a 4-over par 76, tying her career low and shooting 12 pars. Lisa Brandl (Nuremberg, Germany) is tied for 12th with a 5-over par 77 and has 15 pars to lead the tournament.

"The girls had a great round today and I'm really proud of them," head coach Clarissa Childs said. "We've been working real hard on staying focused and having a great game plan and we were very diligent in staying focused on what we wanted to do. It poured rain on us on the front nine and we did a great job not letting that bother us. I look forward to more rounds like this in the future."

Newberry - ranked eighth in the GolfStat head-to-head rankings and 10th in the WGCA Coaches' Poll - is 14 strokes ahead of Tusculum and 16 strokes ahead of Lincoln Memorial. The Wolves are the defending Rendleman Invitational champions and have won the tournament in two of the last three seasons (2009, 2011).