Cullowhee, N.C. – Western Carolina women's golf and first-year head coach Anne Marie Covar travels to West Columbia, S.C., and the Solina Golf Club this week looking for a conference championship and NCAA postseason berth as play opens Monday at the 2025 Southern Conference Women's Golf Championship.
 
The three-day, 54-hole tournament has a new home this season as the par-72, 6,098-yard Solina Golf Club hosts this year's championship event. After practice rounds on Sunday, the champion-crowning event opens on Monday, April 14, and runs through Wednesday, April 16, for WCU and the eight accompanying teams in the nine-squad field. The winning team collects the SoCon's automatic bid to the NCAA regional field with the individual medalist also earning an automatic regional qualification if she is not on the championship team.
 
Paired with golfers from Palmetto State foes The Citadel and Wofford, WCU's scoring five hits the course on the back nine off the No. 10 tee beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Monday.
 
Live scoring for each round will be available online through the Scoreboard app, powered by Clippd with links and additional tournament info at both CatamountSports.com and SoConSports.com.
 
Four of the nine teams in this year's SoCon tournament scored team championships during the 2024-25 regular season. Wofford won a league-best pair of events including the Fripp Island Intercollegiate in the fall and the Mimosa Hills Intercollegiate in the spring as part of five podium – or top three – finishes. Among the other teams with first-place finishes, Samford collected six podium finishes during the season, followed by UNCG with four and Mercer with three. The Bears finished in the top 10 in all, but one of their 11 tournaments played this season. 
 
Additionally, four individuals in the field also claimed medalist honors in 2024-25 including Samford's Gabi Nicastro – the league leader in scoring average at 72.68 – who finished in at least a first-place tie five times.
 
All six Catamounts on the roster will travel to the conference championship with five penciled into the lineup and the sixth serving as the potential alternate. Western Carolina is led into the conference championship by senior Elizabeth Lohbauer, who is making her final appearance for the Purple & Gold. The Venice, Fla., product leads WCU with a 75.68 seasonal scoring average, 17th overall in the conference rankings during the regular season. She has a team-best four top 10 finishes this year including a trio of ninth-place showings.
 
Lohbauer posted her best finish at the championship event as a true freshman in 2022 when she came home in a fifth-place tie overall.
 
She is flanked by junior Sadler Miller, who is coming off her best finish of the season with her second top 10 of the year with a team-best fourth-place finish at the Mimosa Hills Intercollegiate. Miller, who posted a 78.80 stroke average through nine seasonal tournaments, is making her second appearance at the conference championship event.
 
Also, among WCU's scoring five are a pair of freshmen and a third senior, with WCU's sophomore transfer available as the alternate. Canadian-born striker Ella Kozak of Yorkton, Saskatchewan, and classmate Annalee Caveney from Raleigh make their SoCon tournament debuts, while Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, senior Kaitlyn Wingnean joins Lohbauer and Miller with conference championship event experience as the No. 5 seed. Transfer Abby Bradley will travel as the alternate, which can be substituted at any point 10 minutes prior to the scheduled tee time of the player she would replace.
 
Kozak (78.40) holds the second-best stroke average on the squad and ranks 35th in the conference, one spot ahead of Miller in the SoCon statistics. She is ranked sixth among league freshmen in scoring. Caveney (80.68) competed in all 25 seasonal rounds for WCU with Wingnean (83.15) sixth on the team in scoring after competing in 13 rounds in her final season. In her career, Wingnean competed in the 2022 and 2023 SoCon Championships for the Purple & Gold.
 
The alternate, Bradley (86.38), continues to adjust after transferring from Emory & Henry mid-year, playing eight rounds for WCU.
 
As a team, Western Carolina completed the regular season with five top-10 finishes.
 
The Catamounts became just the second SoCon program to win the women's golf title back in 2003 in Waynesville, halting a string of nine-straight team titles by Furman. Brandy Andersen earned WCU's only individual medalist honor at the tournament for the WCU Hall of Fame 2002-03 squad. The Catamounts also claimed the 2007 championship in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. WCU has twice had the runner-up individual finisher as Ashley Hovda (2005) and Bianca Melone (2006) both recorded second-place finishes.
 
All told, only five programs have claimed SoCon Women's Golf Championships dating back to 1994 with defending event champion, Furman, leading the way with 20 team championships including the first nine. Chattanooga has won five titles, each coming in succession between 2010 and 2014, and all coming at Moss Creek. WCU is third with two championships (2003, 2007), with ETSU winning its first-ever women's golf title in 2021 before again winning a season ago, and former league-member College of Charleston winning in 2006.
 
ETSU is the defending champion after winning the 2024 SoCon Championship at Moss Creek Golf Club in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. The Bucs carded a 2-over-par 290 in last year's final round, claiming the team title by 13 strokes over runner-up Samford. ETSU will be looking for its third team title in the last five seasons this week.  

Complete results will be made available after play concludes each round through SoConSports.com and CatamountSports.com.
 
Keep track of everything related to Catamount women's golf and WCU Athletics through its social media outlets on Facebook (fb.com/catamountsports), Instagram (@wcu_catamounts), and Twitter (@catamounts, @CatamountWGolf).
 
SoCon Field (NCAA Ranking) – SoCon Scoring Avg. (As of April 13):
Furman (No. 86) – 297.48 (2nd)
Mercer (No. 87) – 294.26 (1st)
Chattanooga (No. 106) – 298.83 (4th)
UNCG (No. 112) – 297.59 (3rd)
Samford (No. 139) – 303.04 (5th)
Wofford (No. 165) – 307.29 (6th)
ETSU (No. 179) – 308.25 (7th)
Western Carolina (No. 194) – 309.88 (8th)
The Citadel (No. 277) – 343.95 (9th)