The Northwestern women’s golf team wasn’t pleased with its seventh-place finish at the Big Ten championships in Urbana this weekend, but the Wildcats will get a chance to turn around their season next week.

NU was given the No. 13 seed for the NCAA Central regional, which will be held May 9-11 at the Forest Akers West Golf Course in East Lansing, Mich. The No. 34 Cats will make their third straight appearance in the regional round, having finished second in 2000 and 15th last year.

“We’re excited about getting another opportunity to play,” NU coach Chris Regenberg said in a statement. “We still haven’t peaked this season and there’d be no better time than next week.”

The Cats, who entered the season ranked No. 17, have finished no better than fourth in any spring event. But Regenberg thinks the team is on an upswing.

“I’ve seen some signs of late that give me some hope that we can be a team to be reckoned with,” she said.

NU sophomore Hana Kim’s performance is one of the indications that the Cats might be heating up at the right time. Kim braved 40 mph winds at Big Tens to shoot 24-over 312, good for 12th place individually.

But Kim and the rest of the Cats have put Urbana out of their minds.

“We’re all ready to put Big Tens behind us, take regionals just for what it is and play that tournament with a clean slate,” Kim said.

There are three regionals nationwide, with the East and West completing the trio. The top eight finishers in each region advance to the national championships May 21-24 in Auburn, Wash. Each region has 21 teams.

No. 6 Oklahoma State, No. 3 Tulsa and No. 5 Texas earned the top three seeds in the Central regional, while the Big Ten landed the next four spots. Ohio State, which won its second straight Big Ten title this weekend, earned the No. 4 seed despite also owning a No. 4 national ranking. Michigan (No. 5 seed), Michigan State (No. 6), Purdue (No. 7), Indiana (No. 12), NU, Illinois (No. 15) and Wisconsin (No. 17) rounded out the Big Ten contingent.