WACO, Texas - Baylor women's golf returns all nine student-athletes from the fall season and adds one newcomer to its roster for the spring season. After a successful fall, the Lady Bears look to use their five regular season tournaments this spring to prepare for the Big 12 Women's Golf Championship held in San Antonio, Texas, April 24-26.

The Lady Bears saw their best team finish of the fall season at the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational where they finished in third place with a team score of 34-over 846 (288-311-299=898). Baylor also set a school record in the third round of the Alamo Invitational with 14-under 274, the most under-par round in program history. The 274 was just one stroke back of the school record set earlier in the season at the Schooner Fall Classic, but that round was recorded on a par-70 course, while the 274 was on the par-72 Briggs Ranch Country Club course.

"The good thing for us is that we have the fall season," head coach Jay Goble said. "I look at it as a warm-up season. If we have any new players coming in, a lot happens for them to get used to what it's like to be a collegiate golfer, to travel and basically to see how the whole system works. I believe we under-achieved this fall, but with that being said, it's not important how we start but how we finish."

Goble is in his fourth season at Baylor, and he led the Lady Bears to their second all-time NCAA Championship appearance in 2012 and guided senior Hayley Davis to a tie for 10th place as an individual at the 2014 NCAA Championships. Goble led Baylor to the NCAA Regionals in both 2013 and 2014.

"The spring is our championship season where we are looking to get better every week to prepare for conference, then regionals and nationals," Goble said. "Everything is building up for May. Our players have been working hard in the offseason to fix some things from the fall, and we seem to have a hungry group of young ladies that are going to come out this spring and have a great season."

Returning at the top of the Baylor lineup as the only senior on the team is Davis. She placed in the top two individually in two of four tournaments during the fall season, shooting 9-under 201 (70-65-66=201) to finish in a tie for second place at the Schooner Fall Classic and shooting 2-under 214 (65-75-74=214) to win the Betsy Rawls Longhorn Invitational. Davis' score of 65 in both of those tournaments tied the Baylor women's golf record for lowest round score.

"Hayley has always been motivated and she's always been motivated to do well," Goble said. She does the right things to get better. She wants to leave it all out on the table and end her college career with a bang. As far as I know, that's going to happen. She's doing all the right things."

Davis leads the team with a 72.00 stroke average after playing in all four fall tournaments, and she shot par or better in five of the 12 rounds played.

Juniors Laura Lonardi and Natalia Perez also return. Lonardi and Perez were featured in the lineup in three of the four fall tournaments. Lonardi, like Davis, also tied the Baylor women's golf low round record of 65 after shooting 65 in the Alamo Invitational, where she tied for eighth place with a score of 5-under 211 (73-73-65=211). Perez saw her best finish in the "Mo"morial where she shot 6-over 222 (75-70-77=222) to finish in 11th place.

"Laura had a great offseason," Goble said. "She went back to Italy and worked with the national team and got a lot experience. She's ready to go as well. I've seen nothing but positives since the girls have been back, and they seem hungry to do really well this year. From what I've seen so far everything has been positive. We're just trying to get better every day until April and May, and if we do, we're going to have a good team."

Also returning for the Lady Bears are sophomores Maggie Beth Byers, Louise Gateau-Chovelon and Hadas Libman. Byers was featured in the BU lineup in three fall tournaments and shot her lowest score at the Schooner Fall Classic with a 3-over 213 (74-71-68=213). Gateau-Chovelon played in four tournaments during the fall, and Libman was featured in the lineup three times during the season. Libman shot under par at the Alamo Invitational, posting a score of 1-under 215 (72-74-69=215) to tie for 19th place individually.

The Lady Bears also have four true freshmen with Tiffany Breitenwischer, Giovana Maymon, Lauren Whyte and newcomer Dylan Kim. Breitenwischer and Whyte competed as individuals in the "Mo"morial, and Maymon appeared in the Baylor lineup in four fall tournaments and is second only to Davis in her stroke average of 73.83. Maymon saw her best finish at the Alamo Invitational where she shot even-par 216 (72-75-69=216) to finish in a tie for 21st place.

Kim is top-15 national recruit who enrolled at Baylor in January as an early high school graduate. She claimed five tournament titles in 2013, and at the time of her signing was the highest-ranked recruit among 2015 student-athletes who had signed with Big 12 Conference programs.

"Dylan is actually leading our qualifying right now," said Goble. "I foresee that she will be a star for us in the next couple years, and I'm really excited to have her here and in the lineup, because she's going to do good things for Baylor."

Baylor opens its spring season in Palos Verdes, Calif., at the Northrop Grumman Invitational. The three-day, 54-hole event tees off Sunday. The spring schedule also includes the Bruin Wave Invitational in Malibu, Calif., the Dr. Donnis Thompson Invite in Honolulu, Hawaii, the Liz Murphy Collegiate Classic in Athens, Ga., the Ping ASU Invitational in Tempe, Ariz., and finally the Big 12 Women's Golf Championship in San Antonio, Texas.