Carta prevails on 24th hole to send Duke into NCAA semifinals

   It was three summers ago when it took a 40-foot birdie putt on the 18^th green at Rolling Green Golf Club – the 36^th hole of the match -- by South Korean teen Eun Jeong Seong to finally snatch a U.S. Women’s Amateur title away from Italy’s Virginia Elena Carta.

  Earlier that year Carta, a freshman at Duke, had run away with the NCAA individual title at Eugene Country Club.

   So, if your hopes for a national championship were to hinge on one woman playing extra holes in a quarterfinal, you could do worse than to have that person be Virginia Elena Carta.

   The game leaves scar tissue and you can bet Carta has her share. She’s a senior now and maybe she felt a little obligated to get it done after this year’s freshman phenom, Gina Kim of Chapel Hill, N.C., had gutted out a 1-up victory over Stanford’s Albane Valenzuela, a junior from Switzerland and the No. 8 player in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking.

   Carta was locked in an extra-holes battle with Stanford’s Ziyi Wang, a junior from China, Tuesday in the twilight at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark. The winner would move on to the NCAA semifinals. It took six extra holes, but Carta finally pulled out a victory on the 24^th hole to give the Blue Devils, No. 2 in the latest Golfstat rankings, a 3-2 victory over No. 7 Stanford.

   It is the fifth year of the NCAA Championship being played with a level of match play at the end. It will be the first time that Stanford will not be in the semifinals.

   The quarterfinals were supposed to be played Tuesday morning followed by the semifinals in the afternoon. I’m no meteorologist, but a quick glance at the weather radar in the Fayetteville, Ark. area Tuesday morning made it pretty obvious that it was going to be tough to get two rounds of golf in at The Blessings.

   All four quarterfinal matches got started before the heavy weather arrived, but when it did, it stuck around for a while. The delay was six hours followed by several more hours of pure drama as eight of Division I women’s golf’s heavyweights slugged it out in match play over the challenging 6,397-yard, par-72 Blessings layout.

   Duke earned a semifinal showdown Wednesday morning with reigning national champion Arizona after the fourth-ranked Wildcats edged their Pac-12 rival Southern California, the No. 1 team in the country, 3-2.

   Duke’s Atlantic Coast Conference rival Wake Forest, ranked sixth, advanced to a semifinal meeting with Southeastern Conference power Auburn, ranked 13^th, with a hard-fought 3-2 victory over No. 10 Arkansas, playing on its home course.

   Auburn pulled off the biggest upset of the day as the Tigers stunned Big 12 champion Texas, ranked second, 3-2. The Longhorns had earned the top seed through 54 holes of stroke play, but, for the second straight year, the eighth seed, in this case Auburn, was able to oust the No. 1 seed.

   A couple of Auburn players had early wakeup calls to finish up their stroke-play rounds just to make sure the Tigers had nailed down that final spot in match play. They say anything can happen in match play and they are absolutely right about that.

   Wednesday morning’s semifinal winners will meet for the championship Wednesday afternoon.

    Duke’s other point against Stanford came from Ana Belac, a junior from Slovenia who edged Mika Liu, a sophomore form Beverly Hills, Calif., 1-up.

   In one of the most anticipated matches of the day, Stanford’s Andrea Lee, a junior from Hermosa Beach, Calif. and No. 4 in the Women’s WAGR, needed 19 holes to beat Jaravee Boonchant, a sophomore from Thailand and No. 25 in the Women’s WAGR.

   Stanford’s other point came from Aline Krauter, a freshman from Wesley Chapel, Fla. who claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Miranda Wang, a redshirt sophomore from China.

   The player who clinched the national championship for Arizona a year ago at the Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla. was Haley Moore, who two-putted for birdie after reaching the par-5 18^th hole, the 19^th of the match, in two.

   Moore, a senior from Escondido, Calif., was at it again Tuesday, burying a 20-foot birdie try on the final hole to earn a 1-up victory over Southern California’s Gabriela Ruffels, a sophomore from Australia, and clinch a 3-2 victory over the Pac-12 champion.

   Arizona also got a crucial 2 and 1 victory from Bianca Pangdanganan, a senior from the Philippines, over Jennifer Chang, a sophomore from Cary, N.C. and No. 23 in the Women’s WAGR. The third point for the Wildcats came from Ya Chun Chang, a freshman from Taiwan who topped Amelia Garvey, a sophomore from New Zealand, 2 and 1.

   ACC champion Wake Forest got its clinching point, appropriately enough, in its 3-2 victory over Arkansas from Jennifer Kupcho, a senior from Westminster, Colo. and No. 1 in the Women’s WAGR.

Kupcho rolled in a birdie putt on her final hole to edge Kaylee Benton, a senior from Buckeye, Ariz., 1-up.

   That came on the heels of a dramatic 1-up victory for the Demon Deacons’ Siyun Liu, a junior from China, over Dylan Kim, a senior from Plano, Texas and No. 26 in the Women’s WAGR. All Liu did was birdie the last three holes

   Wake Forest’s third point came from Emilia Migliacco, a sophomore from Cary, N.C. and No. 16 in the Women’s WAGR who cruised to a 6 and 4 victory over Ximena Gonzalez, a freshman from Mexico.

   The match also featured the college farewell for Arkansas’ Maria Fassi, a senior from Mexico and No. 3 in the Women’s WAGR. Fassi, who captured the NCAA individual title in front of a supportive Arkansas crowd Monday, claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Vanessa Knecht, a freshman from Switzerland.

   The embrace between Kupcho, the NCAA individual champion a year at Karsten Creek, and Fassi was heartfelt and genuine. Much as they did when they battled down the stretch during Kupcho’s victory in the inaugural Augusta National Women’s Amateur Championship, they displayed everything that’s right about women’s college golf.

   The unlikely SEC representative in the national semifinals will be Auburn, which pulled out its 3-2 victory over Texas when Brooke Sansom, a redshirt freshman from Pike Road, Ala., knocked off Emilee Hoffman, a junior from Folsom, Calif., in 20 holes, sinking a seven-foot birdie putt to clinch the win.

   Mychael O’Berry, a sophomore from Hoover, Ala., rallied for a 1-up decision over Sara Kouskova, a freshman from the Czech Republic. Julie McCarthy, a sophomore from Ireland, got the final point for the Tigers with a huge 3 and 1 win over Agathe Laisne, a sophomore from France and No. 44 in the Women’s WAGR. Laisne had been the Longhorns’ best player this spring.

   Three years removed from teaming up to win the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Streamsong, Texas’ Kaitlyn Papp, a sophomore home girl from Austin, Texas and No. 23 in the Women’s WAGR, and Hailee Cooper, a freshman from Montgomery, Texas, accounted for the Longhorns’ two points.

   Cooper edged Kaleigh Telfer, a sophomore from South Africa, 1-up, while Papp claimed a 2-up victory over Elena Hualde Zuniga, a junior from Spain.