PEORIA, Ill. -- After a strong season-opening outing at the Redbird Invitational, the Bradley women's golf team will face one of its toughest tournament fields of the year Monday and Tuesday when the Braves travel to Louisville, Ky., for the Cardinal Cup. 

Bradley, which is returning to the state of Kentucky for the first time since September 1998, will face seven teams which were ranked in the top 100 according to the final 2011-12 golfweek.com rankings. 

In addition to taking on Maryland (56), tournament-host Louisville (62), Chattanooga (69), Georgia State (82), Missouri (90), UNC-Wilmington (93) and James Madison (96), the Braves will also square off with defending NJCAA national champ Redlands Community College and Missouri Valley Conference rival Illinois State in the 15-team field.  

Play at the par-72 Cardinal Club is slated to begin Monday at 7:40 a.m. (CDT) and will include two rounds of play.  Tuesday's final round is also scheduled to being at 7:40 a.m. (CDT).  BradleyBraves.com will provide a link to live scoring for the 54-hole tournament.

Freshman Danielle Lemek (Doniphan, Neb./Doniphan-Trumbull) and sophomore Thea Hedemann (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan/Walter Murray) helped lead the Braves to a fifth-place finish at last week's Redbird Invitational in Normal, Ill.  The duo tied for sixth in the individual standings, with Lemek posting the best finish by a Bradley freshman in their first collegiate tournament.

The top-10 finish for Hedemann was the fifth of her career and fourth in her last five tournaments dating back to last season.  Junior Cassandra Marschall (Marshfield, Wis./Marshfield/Wisconsin-Green Bay) also helped highlight play at the season-opening Redbird Invitational, matching a career-best 74 in the opening round and went on to tie for 25th. 

Following the Cardinal Cup, the Braves will take a week off before returning to action Oct. 1 & 2 at the Johnie Imes Invitational in Columbia, Mo.