Fassi, Benton help Arkansas close out South Carolina for first SEC crown

   With juniors Maria Fassi and Kaylee Benton leading the way, Arkansas, No. 3 in the latest Golfstat rankings, won three matches in two days, culminating with a 3-2 victory over No. 10 South Carolina Sunday at Greystone Golf & Country Club’s Legacy Course, to capture the program’s first Southeast Conference championship.

   The SEC went with a match-play format to determine its women’s champion for the first time and it predictably resulted in plenty of drama over two days of matches.

   Arkansas finished third behind South Carolina and No. 2 Alabama in the stroke-play portion (there were a couple of earlier posts on that part of the championship) and that left the Razorbacks with a really tough road to Sunday’s final. They battled to a 3-2 victory over No. 13 Florida in Saturday morning’s quarterfinals and then pulled out a 3.5-1.5 win over a powerful Alabama team in Saturday’s semifinals.

   Benton of Buckeye, Ariz. clinched the title by two-putting from 30 feet on the 18^th green of the 6,253-yard, par-72 Legacy Course layout in suburban Birmingham, Ala. to pull out a 1-up victory over South Carolina’s Ainhoa Olarra, a senior from Spain who had claimed the SEC individual crown in a playoff with Fassi Friday.

   It capped a 3-0 run through three match-play rounds for Benton.

   Fassi of Mexico, who also won all three of her matches, contributed a 2 and 1 victory over South Carolina’s Anita Uwadia, a sophomore from the United Kingdom. The Razorbacks also got a hard-fought 2 and 1 victory by Dylan Kim, a junior from Plano, Texas over Lois Kaye Go, a sophomore from the Philippines.

   Arkansas’ Cara Gorlei, a junior from South Africa, and Alana Uriell, a senior from Carlsbad, Calif. suffered tough setbacks. Gorlei went to the 18^th hole before falling, 2-up, to Marion Veysseyre, a junior from France, and Uriell lost on the 19^h hole to Ana Pelaez, a sophomore from Spain.

   That left it up to Benton and she came through against Olarra, who had played 7-under par golf in winning the individual title.

   The weekend produced all sorts of fascinating matchups, probably none more so than the meeting in Saturday's semifinals between Fassi, No. 20 in the Women’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, and Alabama’s Kristen Gillman, a sophomore from Austin, Texas who is No. 13 in the Women’s WAGR.

Fassi pulled out a tough 1-up victory over Gillman, named to the U.S. team for the 2018 Curtis Cup Match earlier last week.

   Uriell also got a key win when she defeated Lauren Stephenson, a junior from Lexington, S.C. who will join Gillman on the U.S. Curtis Cup team, 2 and 1. Stephenson is No. 6 in the Women’s WAGR. And Benton, so solid all weekend, claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Alabama’s veteran leader Lakareber Abe, a senior from Angleton, Texas.

   It was a tough opening-round draw for the Razorbacks as they had to take out defending SEC champion Florida, 3-2, Saturday morning.

   Fassi, shaking off the playoff loss to Olarra a day earlier, rolled to a 4 and 3 win over Taylor Tomlinson, Florida’s senior leader from Gainesviille, Fla., and Benton claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Addison Baggerly, a freshman from Jonesborough, Tenn.

   But the key win for Arkansas came from Gorlei, who earned a 2 and 1 victory over a resurgent Sierra Brooks, a sophomore from Orlando, Fla. who has regained the form this spring that saw her reach the 2015 U.S. Women’s Amateur final.

   Having won the stroke-play qualifying, South Carolina had a little easier road to the final, but there are no real easy matchups in this league.

   The Gamecocks claimed a 4-1 victory over No. 44 Georgia in their semifinal match with Olarra getting another tough draw and falling, 3 and 2, to the Bulldogs’ Jillian Hollis, a junior from Rocky River, Ohio. South Carolina won three matches outright and halved two others in a 4-1 quarterfinal victory over No. 63 Missouri, which grabbed the final spot in the match-play bracket with an eighth-place finish in stroke play.

   In Saturday morning’s other quarterfinal matchups, Alabama claimed a 3-2 victory over No. 24 Vanderbilt and Georgia was a 3-2 winner over No. 20 Auburn.

   It will be interesting to see how many SEC teams are chosen to tee it up in the NCAA Championship when the regional fields are announced Wednesday. I would not be shocked in the least to see a rematch or two from this weekend’s SEC Championship when the NCAA Championship reaches its final eight teams next month at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.