Women’s golf 19th at NCAA Regionals

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The women’s golf team placed 19th in their 11th NCAA Division I Women’s Golf West Regional Tournament at Colorado National Golf Club in Erie, Colo., last Saturday, concluding their season.

“Our performance was a little disappointing for everyone,” said head coach Sammie Chergo. “We stayed in it in the first round and were close to the top eight, but on the second day we shot ourselves out of the tournament. We had an opportunity to do well and just didn’t take advantage of it.”

The Pioneers ended up 51-over par in the tournament with a total score of 915. No. 1 UCLA and No. 7 LSU were both nine-over par, tying for first place.

The top finisher for the Crimson and Gold was junior Kelly Drack, who finished at eight-over par and tied for 41st after a final round score of 72.

Freshman Rachael Watton ended up 12-over par and tied for 61st with a final-round score of 74, which was two-over par for the day. Sophomore Tonje Daffinrud tied for 71st with 13-over par and a 76 overall on the final day.

“There wasn’t anyone who had a particularly good weekend,” said Chergo. “By the third day, we were so far out of it that everyone was playing for the pride of our school and for our seniors.”

The top eight teams in the regional tournament moved on to the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championships. In addition to UCLA and LSU, Pepperdine (875), Colorado (877), Baylor (879), Stanford (879), North Carolina (880) and Oklahoma (890).

Despite the unfortunate finish to this season, Chergo is optimistic about next season and the new additions to the team.

“We have two incoming freshman that I am really excited about, and we’ll start practice on September 7 for next year,” she said. “Our first tournament is in mid-September and our fall schedule is really strong. We want to do all we can to prepare and reach our goal of winning our conference again and competing in the national championships.”