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Sunday, May 6, 2018

Walker, DiLisio, Basso ready to tee it up in NCAA regionals


   Three PIAA champions of recent vintage will be teeing it up when the NCAA Regionals get under way Monday at four sites around the country.
   Sophomore Brynn Walker, who captured PIAA Class AAA crowns as a junior in 2014 and as a senior in 2015 at Radnor, and her North Carolina teammates are seeded sixth in the San Francisco Regional, which is being held at TPC Harding Park, the revamped 6,369-yard, par-72 municipal course that has hosted a Presidents Cup, among other big events in recent years.
   Junior Isabella DiLisio, who captured the 2013 PIAA Class AAA championship as a junior at Mount St. Joseph, and her Notre Dame teammates are seeded 12th in the Madison Regional, which will be held at the 6,913-yard, par-72 University Ridge Golf Course on the Wisconsin campus in Madison, Wis.
   Junior Cara Basso, the 2012 PIAA Class AA champion as a sophomore at Villa Maria Academy, will represent Penn State as an individual, also at the Madison Regional.
   It could easily be four PIAA champions in the NCAA regionals, but Erica Herr, who won the 2011 and 2012 state crowns at Council Rock North, has apparently been sidelined by injury throughout her senior year at Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons, No. 18 in the latest Golfstat rankings, are seeded fifth in the Tallahassee Regional. I say apparently because I’m not completely certain whether Herr is injured or just unable to crack the Wake Forest lineup, but, as far as I’ve been able to determine, she has not played this season.
   The top six teams and the top three individuals not associated with one of the six qualifying teams will advance to the NCAA Championship May 18 to 23 at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.
   I’ve been following Walker’s golf fortunes ever since she showed up at Radnor as a freshman in the fall of 2012 and was the key addition that put the Raiders girls, runnerup in the PIAA team chase a year earlier, over the top as they captured the 2012 team crown.
   In addition to her two individual state crowns and the girls title in 2012, Walker led a coed Radnor team to the boys PIAA Class AAA title in her senior year in the fall of 2015.
   Walker and her pal Madelein Herr, a teammate of Basso’s at Penn State and Erica Herr’s younger sister, showed up at the inaugural U.S. Women’s Amateur Fall-Ball Championship at Bandon Dunes in the spring of their junior year in high school in 2015 and made a spectacular run to the semifinals. They came back the following year in the U.S. Women’s Four-Ball at another Tom Doak design at Streamsong and reached the quarterfinals.
   Walker is a team player, a point that she has proven in nearly two full seasons with the Tar Heels. She has been in the starting lineup for every tournament in two seasons. A year ago, North Carolina pulled off a stunning rally on the final day of the Athens Regional to advance to the NCAA Championship at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill.
   The Tar Heels rallied again on the final day of qualifying for match play at Rich Harvest Farms and came up one shot out of the eighth and final spot. North Carolina showed remarkable grit in both postseason tournaments.
   Of course, grit can sometimes be associated with a team perhaps lacking a little in talent. I don’t think that’s the case with North Carolina, which is ranked 24th. The Tar Heels have been a little inconsistent, but seemed to find themselves in a bust-out performance by Kelly Whaley, a junior from Farmington, Conn., whose runaway individual victory led them to the team title at the Brian’s Creek Invitational.
   A tie for eighth in the ACC Championship at the Grandover Resort’s East Course in Greensboro, N.C. in its last outing was a disappointment for North Carolina, but 11 teams from that field received bids to the NCAA regionals.
   The lineup has been pretty much set since early in the season last fall. Ava Bergner, a freshman from Germany, burst onto the scene and was the Tar Heels’ best player during the fall portion of the season.
   Bryana Nguyen, a senior from Columbia, Md., will be playing in her fourth NCAA regional. Mariana Ocano, a sophomore from St. Petersburg, Fla., will be, like Bergner, making her NCAA regional debut. But Ocano played the best golf of her two years in Chapel Hill this spring.
   North Carolina will be running into two of the Pac-12’s top teams at Harding Park in conference champion UCLA, No. 1 in the country and the regional’s top seed, and second seed Stanford, ranked fifth and playing close to home.
   A year ago the Tar Heels outplayed their No. 9 seeding in the Athens Regional. I like their chances to equal or better their No. 6 seed in San Francisco and earn another trip to the NCAA Championship.
   A tough Harding Park layout just might play into the hands of Jan Mann's Tar Heels.
   I speculated at the time that DiLisio and her Fighting Irish teammates might have needed the final round of 6-over 294 they put up in the ACC Championship to earn a bid to the regionals. Well, whether that mattered or not, No. 47 Notre Dame will tee it up Monday in Madison.
   DiLisio has battled a balky back for the better part of two years, but hung an even-par 72 on the board in the final round at Grandover’s East Course to spark the Irish’s final-round surge, which enabled them to finish 10th.
   Like North Carolina, Notre Dame’s starting five has been pretty consistent this spring.
   A year ago, Notre Dame did not make the regionals, although Emma Albrecht, a junior from Ormond Beach, Fla., did receive an invitation to compete as an individual in the Columbus Regional. Albrecht is Notre Dame’s clear No. 1 and she will certaianly benefit from that experience from last spring.
   In addition to DiLisio and Albrecht, the starting lineup for Notre Dame includes Maddie Rose Hamilton, a junior from Louisville, Ky., Mia Ayer, a sophomore from Waco, Texas, and Abby Heck, a freshman from Memphis, Tenn. Ayer and Heck, in particular, seemed to have found more of a comfort zone this spring.
   Like the rest of the regionals, the Madison field is loaded with ACC champion Duke, ranked No. 4, as the top seed. A couple of Pac-12 invaders, No. 6 Southern Cal and its fabulous four freshmen, and reigning national champion Arizona State, ranked 12th, are seeded second and third, respectively.
   As a 12th seed, Notre Dame has its work cut out for it to earn a trip to Karsten Creek. But it’s golf we’re talking about here. More than a couple of teams are going to outplay their seeds this week and extend their season.
   And then there is Basso, who ripped off a 5-under 67 at TPC River’s Bend in the second round of the Big Ten Championship to surge into contention for the individual title. She finished tied for fourth, but her strong showing earned her a chance to compete in Madison as an individual.
   Basso, winner of the Women’s Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Match-Play Championship last summer, will be Penn State’s first representative at the regionals since senior Christian Vosters and junior Ellen Ceresko received invitations to compete as individuals in the East Regional in 2014.
   It all gets under way Monday. In addition to the San Francisco and Madison regionals, the Tallahassee Regional will feature top-seeded Alabama, No. 2 in the latest Golfstat rankings, and second-seeded Furman, ranked seventh, and the Austin Regional will be headed by SEC champion Arkansas, the top seed and ranked No. 3, and host Texas, the second seed and ranked No. 8.


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