NCAA Women's Golf Championships report

Final eight better for Arkansas

University of Arkansas' Maria Fassi (left) is shown Monday, May 20, 2019, with head coach Shauna Taylor on the first fairway during the NCAA women's golf championship Monday the Blessings Golf Club in Johnson.
University of Arkansas' Maria Fassi (left) is shown Monday, May 20, 2019, with head coach Shauna Taylor on the first fairway during the NCAA women's golf championship Monday the Blessings Golf Club in Johnson.

FAYETTEVILLE -- While the University of Arkansas won't be around for the final day of competition at the NCAA Women's Golf Championships at Blessings Golf Club, the Razorbacks left an imprint on the event.

Arkansas senior Maria Fassi was the medalist in stroke play and part of a squad that made it to the quarterfinals of the event.

"This team is fantastic," Arkansas Coach Shauna Taylor said. "They're an awesome group of nine young women who has definitely changed the face of our program. Four seniors who talk about leaving their mark ... they left their forever mark on Arkansas golf today."

Arkansas led 3-2 before seeing a match flip at the end that handed Wake Forest the win and a berth in the semifinals against Auburn, who upset Texas.

"We fell a little short of our goal, but I'm extremely proud of the fight we showed out there," Fassi said.

She was especially impressed with Razorback freshman Brooke Matthews, who held off a challenge from Letizi Bagnoli, who had a hole-in-one on her next-to-last hole.

"I'm just so proud of her," Fassi said. "She's grown. They made a hole-in-one on her on No. 8, and she goes and wins No. 9 to win the match and give us a point. You don't see that very often.

"I was telling her how proud of her I am. I can tell she's going to be a great player and an amazing person, and I was lucky to be part of a team with her."

All-Americans

The NCAA announced its All-America team Tuesday, and 10 members were still alive entering match play, including individual champion Maria Fassi of Arkansas.

The rest of the first-team All-Americans are Jennifer Kupcho and Emilia Migliaccio of Wake Forest; Andrea Lee and Albane Valenzuela of Stanford; Hailee Cooper and Agathe Laisne of Texas; Jennifer Chang of USC; Jaravee Boonchant of Duke; Frida Kinhult of Florida State; and Patty Tavatanakit of UCLA.

All but Kinhult and Tavatanakit advanced with their teams into match play.

Quick saw

Stanford's Ziyi Wang thought she had put a 12-footer for birdie into the hole for a match winner in extra holes on No. 3.

Wang started the first movement of the chainsaw pull as her putt hit the right edge of the hole and started to move left. Instead of falling in the cup, the ball lipped out. Her opponent, Virginia Elena Carta of Duke, made her 3-foot par putt to halve the hole. The pair moved on to No. 4 for their 22nd hole of the day.

Carta would win in 24 holes. She also got a fortunate bounce off a stake that possibly prevented her ball from tumbling down a rockfall from an elevated green.

Author Emilia

Wake Forest's Emilia Migliaccio is a little more accomplished than most of her peers. The sophomore from Cary, N.C., is already a published author. Her book Just An Illusion, described as a romantic drama, came out on Dec. 21.

New slate

Weather affected the championships for the third time in the past four days, necessitating a move of the semifinals to today, meaning the semifinals and finals are scheduled for the same day.

Tuesday's weather delay hit at 10:10 a.m., with all teams on their first nines during the quarterfinals of match play, and resumed 6 hours and 10 minutes later at 4:20 p.m.

"Moving forward, we've come to the determination as a committee -- working with all the professionals that have been involved here -- to move the semifinals to tomorrow morning," Ryan Colton, chairman of the NCAA Division I Golf committee and associate athletic director at Richmond, told the Golf Channel. "Early enough where we can get those done and have a little bit of time to do the pairings and make sure the student-athletes can get lunch and get turned around. We're confident we're going to crown a champion tomorrow afternoon."

Rebound

The No. 10 Arkansas Razorbacks did not qualify for match play last year in Stillwater, Okla., after winning the SEC championships and the NCAA Austin Regional. The hurt of that setback was a spur to the current team.

Arkansas got off to a poor start and could not make up enough ground, despite rallying to within one shot of the cut for the final eight.

"Yeah, definitely, the drive back from Stillwater last year was no fun," Arkansas' Maria Fassi said. "I know I didn't want to feel that way again. I knew the team didn't want to feel that way ever again."

Fassi said coaches Shauna Taylor and Mike Adams applied the lessons from that heartbreak to this season.

"I think we just kind of used that as extra motivation to work harder, and I mean, we've been working for this week for two years, ever since we found out that we were going to host, we put in all the work for this week."

Matthews' big shot

Arkansas freshman Brooke Matthews finished undefeated in match play this season thanks to the help of a big-time shot on her final hole that allowed her to birdie and win that match.

It came right after Wake Forest freshman Letizia Bagnoli had aced No. 8 on the next-to-last hole of the match.

"That was pretty awesome, obviously, and it came at a great time," Matthews said. "[Bagnoli's ace] was an awesome shot, and I just had to keep in mind that there was nothing about that, can't really match that.

"I knew I just had to hit a great shot into this hole and that is what I did when I needed to do it."

Bagnoli's hole-in-one has been the only one of the tournament.

Matthews was familiar with her approach shot on No. 9.

"It was just a little 88-yarder," Matthews said. "I wanted to play it in the middle and spin it off the hill. That was our plan, and it looked good."

Longhorns stats

One reason Texas came from behind to claim the No. 1 seed heading into match play was the team depth and the Longhorns' ability to play well when power or finesse was needed.

Texas led the field with 167 pars during stroke play and ranked in the top five of all teams on the par 3s, 4s and 5s.

The Longhorns led the field with an average score of 4.16 on the par 4s, ranked fourth on the par 3s at 3.12 strokes per hole and fourth on the par 5s at 4.92.

Duke and Southern California were the only other teams to rank in the top five in scoring on the par 3s, 4s and 5s.

League ties

The Pac-12 led all conferences with three participants in match play, with No. 1 USC, No. 4 Arizona and No. 7 Stanford all involved. However, the league was guaranteed to lose a team with the Trojans matched up against the Wildcats in the 3 vs. 6 pairing.

The SEC and ACC had two teams in match play, while the Big 12 had a lone representative in Texas.

Arkansas and Auburn represented the SEC, while Duke and Wake Forest played for the ACC.

Team data

No. 3 Duke led the field with 56 birdies during stroke play, followed by No. 1 USC with 50, Florida (46), Stanford (46) and Texas (43).

Washington led the way on the par 3s with an average score of 3.07, followed by Duke (3.1), Florida (3.1), Texas (3.12) and USC (3.17).

Texas led on par 4s, followed by USC (4.24), Duke (4.25), Arkansas (4.3) and Stanford (4.31).

Duke had an average score of 4.84 on the par 5s to top the field, followed by Stanford (4.85), USC (4.88), Texas (4.92) and Virginia (4.93). Florida State was the only other team to play the par 5s under par (4.97), while Arizona, Arkansas and Auburn played them in exactly 5.0 strokes per hole.

Individual data

Florida junior Sierra Brooks, the individual runner-up to Arkansas' Maria Fassi, led the field in stroke play with 17 birdies, four more than the next-highest individuals. Fassi was in a group of players with 13 birdies along with Ana Belac of Duke, Bianca Pagdanganan of Arizona, Crystal Wang of Illinois and Amanda Hollandsworth of Virginia Tech.

Ya Chun Chang of Arizona and Natasha Andrea Oon of San Jose State had 39 pars to lead the way.

Eagles fly

Southern California and Wake Forest led the field with two eagles each in stroke play, while 12 of the other 22 teams posted one eagle.

USC's Amelia Garvey, one of the longest hitters in the game, stood alone with two eagles. Jennifer Kupcho and Siyun Liu of Wake Forest were the only teammates to card eagles.

photo

Arkansas freshman golfer Brooke Matthews carries her bag during the NCAA Women's Golf Championships on Tuesday, May 21, 2019, in Fayetteville.

Sports on 05/22/2019

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