RENO, Nev. – The last time the Nevada women's golf team was on the course in a collegiate event, it finished just two shots back of capturing its first ever Mountain West Championship. Now the Wolf Pack looks to carry that momentum into a new season.
 
Nevada had a remarkable run in the 2018 Mountain West Championship as it entered the event ranked seventh in the league and finished in second place. The championship came down to the wire as the Wolf Pack finished one shot behind champions San Diego State, and two shots back of winning the championship outright. Nevada also finished ahead of three-time defending champs UNLV. For the Pack, the second place showing marked the program's best Mountain West Championship finish and tied its overall conference championship finish.
 
Head coach Kathleen Takaishi, who enters her seventh season at the helm of the program, looks to carry that momentum into the new year with many returning pieces from that team. She will need to replace Kaitlin Collom and Chaithra Katamneni, who both graduated in the spring and were consistent starters for the Pack last season. However, Takaishi returns three of the five starters from the Mountain West Championship run, including senior Jenny Krause, sophomore Danni Ujimori and All-MW second team honoree Victoria Gailey. Senior Katy Rutherford, who has played 69 rounds for the Pack in her career, is also back for her final season, along with sophomore Maddy Zunino.
 
With five solid returners, and three talented newcomers, Takaishi should have a deep lineup to pull from. Of those three newcomers, all are freshman. Kaitlin Fleiner joins the Pack this fall, a local product and graduate of Reed High School in Sparks, who was twice named the High Desert League Player of the Year. Leah John out of Vancouver, B.C. is another newcomer for the Pack who represented Team BC at the Canadian Nationals this year and helped her team to a runner-up finish. Anitra Khoth, a native of Stockton, Calif., rounds out the newcomers and was a two-time section champion at Lincoln High School.
 
Nevada begins its quest for the program's first conference championship next Monday, Sept. 9 when it competes in the season-opening Dick McGuire Invitational in Albuquerque, N.M. The Pack will play a total of nine regular season events before the 2020 Mountain West Championship in Palm Desert, Calif. on April 20-22.