BY ADAM ZUVANICH l AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

The Texas Tech men’s golf team is in the midst of its most successful era.

Head coach Greg Sands has guided the Red Raiders to eight straight appearances in NCAA regional tournaments, and they’ve qualified for the NCAA Championships in three of the last four years. This past season, Tech placed second at the Big 12 Conference tournament — its highest finish ever — and had a top-20 national ranking.

Tech athletic director Gerald Myers wants the women’s team to reach similar heights, and he’s counting on JoJo Robertson to make it happen.

Robertson, a 33-year-old native of Roswell, N.M. who has been the associate head coach at Purdue for the last five years, was introduced Thursday as Tech’s new head coach. She replaces Stacey Totman, who was fired in May shortly after the Lady Raiders tied for 11th place in the Big 12 Conference tournament held on their home course.

“I think that probably was something that JoJo looked at — the fact that our men have been successful,” Myers said. “… I think she thought, ‘If they can do that on the men’s side, we can do that on the women’s side as well.’ Usually those things have a way of affecting each other. One successful program, I think, helps the other.”

Robertson said she’s looking forward to working with Sands and “trying to follow the footsteps” of the men’s team. She also said the Lady Raiders have all the necessary ingredients to thrive — from second-to-none practice facilities at The Rawls Course to a strong core of returning players to a deep talent pool in the Texas high school ranks.

Robertson said her expectations will be “pretty high” entering next season, and that she wants Tech to “improve in the Big 12 and be at the top as soon as possible.” Among the four holdovers from this year’s team, Rosayln Kim is coming off a tie for 10th place at the Big 12 tournament.

“It’s a challenge, but I’m definitely looking forward to it,” said Robertson, who plans to focus on course management and her players’ short games. “… I think there’s no question that we’ll be very successful here.”

Robertson also is excited about coming home, at least to an extent. She graduated from Roswell Goddard High School — where she won three individual state championships and was on five title-winning teams coached by her mother, Becky — and her parents and grandparents still live in Roswell.

She said Tech’s proximity to her hometown made the job even more attractive, and makes it a little easier to part ways with her older brother, Greg, who is an assistant coach for the men’s team at Purdue.

“It helped a lot,” said Robertson, whose parents attended Thursday’s news conference. “I only get home once, maybe twice a year, so just being about three hours away is going to be nice.”

Myers said Tech considered several candidates for the job, including current head coaches and up-and-coming assistants. But he said Robertson’s name continued to pop up during the search, primarily because of her track record as both a player and coach.

In addition to her success at the high school level, Robertson also was an all-conference player at Oklahoma State and is a two-time U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links champion. And during her tenure at Purdue, the Boilermakers won back-to-back Big Ten Conference championships and had four straight top-10 finishes at the NCAA tournament.

“If she could just win one of those conference championships here at Texas Tech,” Myers said, “we would be very excited.”

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