PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Improvement on last year's fourth-place finish will be the goal for Louisiana's Ragin' Cajun golf team when play opens today at the 2005 Sun Belt Conference Golf Championships at the PGA Village North and Dye courses.

Ten teams will open play at 7 a.m. (CDT) today for the first round of the three-day, 54-hole meet.

"If we get everybody playing well at the same time, we can win here," said Cajun coach Bob Bass. "We've had a lot of kids that have posted good scores, but it seems like we never get them at the same time."

New Mexico State is the defending Sun Belt men's champion, while the Cajuns finished fourth overall last year.

Steven Pena, the lone senior on this year's UL squad, tied for 15th last year with a six-over 222 score and had a strong showing last week, finishing tied for second with a three-under 69 in the rain-shortened ASU Indian Classic.

Pena, ranked ninth in the league with a 73.96 stroke average, will be joined by juniors Peter Badawy and Glyn Bateman and freshmen Justin Lowe and Lafayette's Michael Smith in the Cajun lineup.

Lowe has been responsible for much of the Cajuns' recent tournament successes. Earlier this month, Lowe finished tied for sixth with a one-over-par 217 to lead the Cajuns to a sixth-place finish at the LSU Spring Invitational in Baton Rouge.

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