By: Max Bechtoldt
After nearly a week of play, the field at the NCAA Division I National Championship has been whittled down to two teams, Stanford and UCLA.
Both teams somewhat cruised through the quarterfinals, winning 3-0, with the only match making it the full 18 holes being the first group out for each. Stanford’s Sadie Englemann had the standout moment here, with a birdie on 18 to force a playoff with Auburn’s Anna Davis, which she won on the 19th hole.
UCLA took relative care of Texas A&M, only trailing in one match on the second nine, and even that was only for three total holes. This set up an all Pac 12 Championship after Oregon beat LSU and No. 1 ranked amateur Ingrid Lindblad, and USC easily handled Clemson.
UCLA and Oregon never felt particularly close. Though Oregon’s Kiara Romero easily handled UCLA’s top player Zoe Campos (above), it didn’t matter. Caroline Canales in the first match out dominated Karen Tsuru, winning7&5, while none of the other matches reached 18. UCLA really kicked it into gear on the back nine, owning multi-hole leads in each of the final three matches all the way through.
The headliner match though was USC vs Stanford, a rematch of the 2023 semifinals that saw the Trojans pull off the massive upset over Rose Zhang and company. This time, the Cardinal got its revenge. Englemann once again was the star here, winning her match 6&5. USC did get some gold on the board when its top player Amari Avery took down Stanford leader Rachel Heck 2&1. Star Stanford freshman Paula Martin Sampedro looked in control on the back nine, until some crucial mistakes brought Bailey Shoemaker back in it for the Trojans. It didn’t matter though. Stanford’s Megha Ganne and Kelly Xu kicked it into gear, winning their matches on 17 and 16 respectively to grab the thrilling victory.
