The ISU women’s golf team will compete Monday and Tuesday in the Central District Invitational in Parrish, Fla. The Cyclones enter as the No. 16 team in the nation, the best of any Big 12 school. They will be competing alongside 14 other teams, including several that are also highly ranked nationally.

The Cyclones are hoping to put up another strong finish in Florida.

“Our goal is definitely to be in the top three, but we always are playing to win,” said Victoria Stefansen. “After this last weekend when we were so close to beating the No. 1 team in the country [Alabama] it’s just made us hungry for more and to play better.”

Sophomore Punpaka Phuntumabamrung echoed Stefansen’s remarks.

“I want to play well and hopefully get in the top 10,” Phuntumabamrung said. “As a team we want to shoot well, and really we want to win. It will be my first time playing there in Florida, but I think it’s Bermuda grass, which is what we just played on and is like the grass back at home [in Thailand.]”

Stefansen also said the team isn’t new to the Florida course.

“We played the course two years ago,” Stefansen said. “We have stroke savers and stuff that we’ve been going over. As far as I remember it’s the same type of grass we just played on, Bermuda grass. We did pretty well last time we were there, it’s got some good par 3’s.”

Iowa State will be playing alongside Auburn, Duke, Kansas, Kent State, LSU, Michigan, Michigan State, Missouri, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Purdue, South Carolina, TCU and Texas.

It’s the second week in a row for the Cyclones to compete against Purdue, the defending national champions. Last weekend in Puerto Rico, Iowa State bested Purdue by 16 strokes.

“There are going to be some tough teams there,” said Laurence Herman. “I know Michigan State and Ohio State are very good. TCU is tough too. It was great to beat Purdue last week and fun to play so close to Alabama. We just want to go out and play our best – we want to win.”

The tournament, which will be played at the River Wilderness Golf and Country Club’s course, starts Monday morning and runs all day Monday and Tuesday.