Virginia nailed down the team title for the second straight
year at the ACC Championship, which concluded Sunday at the Sedgefield Country
Club in Greensboro, N.C., but Wake Forest made a strong statement all weekend
in finishing a solid second, the Demon Deacons’ best finish since winning the
title in 2010.
Virginia, No. 18 in the latest Golfstat rankings, turned in a 2-under 286 final round to finish at
9-under 855. But Wake Forest, ranked 45th, pushed the Cavaliers all
the way. The Demon Deacons had a 1-under 287 in the final round to finish at
2-over 866, 11 shots behind Virginia, but a whopping 17 shots ahead of Duke,
ranked No. 3 by Golfstat, in third
place.
Not surprisingly, Virginia and Wake Forest players were at
the top of the individual leaderboard as well. Virginia’s Lauren Coughlin, a
senior from Chesapeake, Va., completed a wire-to-wire individual victory with a
2-under 70 over the 6,089-yard, par-72 Sedgefield layout that enabled her to
finish at 9-under 207. According to the Virginia website, Coughlin’s boyfriend,
former UVA football player John Pond, proposed to her during the trophy
presentation, so … pretty good weekend all the way around for Coughlin.
It was a breakout weekend for the two Wake Forest players
who finished tied for second, two shots behind Coughlin, Sierra Sims, a junior
from Austin, Texas, and Jennifer Kupcho, a freshman from Littleton, Colo.
Sims fired a 5-under 67 Sunday while Kupcho carded a 3-under
69 as they shared second place at 7-under 209. After an opening-round 76, all
Sims did was go 11-under in the final two rounds. Kupcho opened with a 66 and
was near the top of the leaderboard the whole weekend.
In fourth place alone was Virginia’s Lauren Diaz-Yi, a
junior from Thousand Oaks, Calif. who had a final-round 73 to finish at 2-under
214. The low round of the day for the Cavaliers came from Anna Redding, a
freshman from Concord, N.C. who posted a 3-under 69 Sunday to finish in a tie
for fifth at even-par 216.
Redding was joined at the figure by North Carolina State’s Naomi
Ko, a freshman from Canada who had a 2-under 70 in the final round, and North
Carolina’s Leslie Cloots, a junior from Belgium who fired a 4-under 68 in the
final round.
Cloots helped the Tar Heels, ranked 46th, finish
fourth in the team standings, a shot behind Duke at 884. North Carolina, which
had a final round of 2-under 286, will add Radnor’s Brynn Walker, the two-time
PIAA Class AAA champion, to the mix in the fall. Ko led the Wolfpack, ranked 34th,
to fifth place at 886.
Also contributing to Wake Forest’s strong showing were
Antonia Eberhard, a freshman from Germany who finished tied for 19th
at 223 following a final-round 76, and Erica Herr, a sophomore from New Hope who
finished tied for 29th at 226 following a final-round 76. Herr won
the PIAA individual title in 2011 and 2012 while at Council Rock North.
Duke was led by Virginia Elena Carta, a freshman from Italy,
and Leona Maguire, a sophomore from Ireland and the No. 1 amateur player in the
world, both of whom ended up tied for 10th at 3-over 219. Carta
matched par at Sedgefield, home to the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship, with a
72 in the final round and Maguire had a 2-over 74.
It was a disappointing weekend for Notre Dame, ranked 37th
by Golfstat, although the Fighting
Irish had their best round of the tournament with a 295 total in the final
round. It wasn’t enough for Notre Dame to move up in the final team standings
as it settled for a 10th-place finish at 904.
Talia Campbell, Notre Dame’s senior captain from Dallas,
capped a solid tournament by matching par with a 72 that enabled her to finish
ninth at 2-over 218, a really strong showing in a big-time field.
Emma Albrecht, a freshman from Ormond Beach, Fla., had a
final-round 73 to finish tied for 17th at 222. Fellow freshman
Isabella DiLisio, the 2013 PIAA Class AAA champion at Mount St. Joseph, found
her groove after struggling of late, posting a 1-over 73 Sunday to finish 44th
at 231.
The third member of Notre Dame’s trio of talented freshmen, Maddie
Rose Hamilton of Louisville, Ky., had a 79 to finish tied for 52nd
at 235 and Jordan Ferreira, a junior from University Place, Wash., had a 77 to
finish 56th at 241.
I’m no college women’s golf bracketologist, by any means,
but you can expect to see quite a few of the teams from the ACC tourney in one
of the four NCAA regional fields when they are announced Sunday.
The same goes for many of the teams that teed it up at this
weekend’s SEC Championship held at The Legacy Course at Greystone Golf &
Country Club in Birmingham, Ala.
In a field that included four of the top eight teams in the
latest Golfstat rankings and nine of
the top 40 teams, No. 1 Alabama flexed its considerable muscle to pull away
from No. 7 Florida and capture the team title.
The Crimson Tide put up a 7-under 281 in the final round to
finish at 5-under 859, five shots clear of the Gators, who carded a 2-under 286
to finish at even-par 864. Arkansas, ranked eighth, matched par with a 288 in
the final round, but was far back in third at 882, 18 shots behind Florida.
Such was the depth of talent in the field that Georgia, a deserving No. 5 in
the country, finished sixth in the team standings at 889.
The individual winner was Florida’s Maria Torres, a junior
from Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, who never took her foot off the gas, adding a
final-round 70 to rounds of 69 and 68 for a 9-under 207 total. Not that South
Carolina’s Katelyn Dambaugh, for my money one of the most underrated players in
women’s college golf, didn’t take a run at Torres. The junior from Goose Creek,
S.C. fired a final-round 66 to finish second at 7-under 209, two shots back of
Torres.
Then the roll Tide portion of the program kicked in.
Alabama’s Cheyenne Knight, a freshman from Aledo, Texas, had a final-round 69
to finish third at 4-under 212. Emma Talley, a senior from Princeton, Ky. and
the reigning NCAA individual champion, had a final-round 70 to finish fourth at
3-under 213. And Lakareber Abe, a sophomore from Angleton, Texas, had a
final-round 71 to finish in a tie for fifth at 1-under 215.
Abe was joined at that figure by Arkansas’ Maria Fassi, the
freshman from Mexico who didn’t arrive in Fayetteville until the start of the
spring semester. Fassi signed for a 2-under 69 to finish at 1-under 215.
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