A&M freshman Sarah Zwartynski added a 72 while Lauren Johnson shot 75, Ashley Freeman shot 77 and Miranda Orr 83.

Top-seeded UCLA leads at 283. A&M was seeded eighth.

TCU is two strokes back of UCLA, followed by Purdue 288, Denver 292, Nebraska 294, A&M 295, Florida State 298 and Texas 299.

The 21-team, 54-hole event continues through Saturday. The top eight teams will advance to the NCAA Championship on May 20-23 in Albuquerque, N.M.

A&M was 6 over after four holes but played the final 14 in 1 over.

"We got off to a little bit of a slow start, but one of the things these girls do really well is keep fighting and they did a good job of that," A&M head coach Trelle McCombs said. "They settled down and started playing Aggie golf. We had a nice 1-2 punch with Danielle and Z. It's always good to have a 71 and 72 on the board."

UCLA's Maria Jose Uribe leads the individual standings by one shot after a 7-under 65. Purdue's Maria Hernandez had a 66.

McVeigh bogeyed the first hole but bounced back with birdies on Nos. 5 and 9.

She was 1 over after a pair of bogeys early on the back nine but posted consecutive birdies on the 15th and 16th.

ET CETERA

Over 100 Aggie athletes to graduate: Texas A&M will have 106 student-athletes taking part in five spring commencement exercises Friday and Saturday at Reed Arena.

Several athletes will have to miss commencement as they compete on the athletic field.

Megan Gibson and Jami Lobpries will be with the fifth-ranked softball team in Oklahoma City trying to add the Big 12 tournament title to their regular-season title. Lobpries is also being honored by the College of Education and Human Development as a distinguished honor graduate with a 3.8 grade-point average.

Daman Aaron, Darby Brown, Blake Rampy, Joey Register and Brian Ruggiano are members of the fifth-ranked baseball team, which will be in Nebraska this weekend trying to wrap up the Big 12 regular-season title.

Aggie tennis players Matt Bain and Marissa Druss will not be able to walk the stage as they play in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Golfers Bobby Gates and Miranda Orr will be at the NCAA Regional Tournaments.

Reserve quarterback T.J. Sanders, who posted a 4.0 GPA in exercise physiology, will be recognized as a distinguished honor graduate by the College of Education and Human Development on Friday.

Dominique Kirk and Beau Muhlbach from the men's basketball team will receive their degrees after leading the Aggies to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances.

A'Quonesia Franklin, who was selected in the WNBA draft after leading the women's basketball team to the NCAA Elite Eight, will also receive her degree.

Special to The Eagle