Baylor WGOLF Advances to NCAA Championship with Third-Place Finish in Las Vegas

Wed May 8 18:16:43 CDT 2024

BAYLOR ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS- May 8, 2024

Baylor WGOLF Advances to NCAA Championship with Third-Place Finish in Las Vegas
Two Bears card scores in red figures to help BU record the round of the day
For more information contact: Matt Roberts, 254-227-2280, WM_Roberts at Baylor.edu<mailto:WM_Roberts at Baylor.edu>

LAS VEGAS, Nev. — On a windy day in Las Vegas where most of the field went backward, Baylor women's golf carded a 6-over 294, the best round of the day, to finish third and advance to the NCAA Championship in Carlsbad, Calif.

Baylor was one of only two teams to shoot single digits over par on Wednesday and finished at least eight shots better than any of the other four advancing teams. Arkansas captured the regional title with a score of even-par 864, four shots ahead of second-place Purdue and eight shots in front of the Bears’ 8-over 872.

With the winds gusting up to 40 miles per hour and the scoring average a shade under 78, Ashleen Kaur led the Bears with a 3-under 69. The freshman recorded the round of the day and one of just three rounds in red figures to tie for fourth with her teammate Sera Hasegawa with matching 3-under 213s. Wednesday marked the second time in three years BU had multiple players finish in the top five. UCLA’s Zoe Campos and Arkansas’ Kajal Mistry shared co-medalist honors at 6-under 210.

THE RUNDOWN
Kaur got off to a great start, making two birdies in her first three holes at Nos. 11 and 12. Her first bogey of the day came at No. 13, but she quickly responded with birdies at Nos. 15 and 17 to close her first nine with a 3-under 33. Kaur kept cooking on her inward half with birdies at Nos. 1 and 3 to climb into the top three on the leaderboard. A double bogey at No. 7 dropped her back to 3-under on the round.

Hasegawa got things kickstarted with a birdie at No. 10 before dropping a pair of shots at Nos. 11 and 12. She closed her outward nine strong with back-to-back birdies at Nos. 17 and 18 to make the turn in red figures. A bogey at No. 1 would prove to be the final one of the day for the junior, adding one more birdie at No. 6 to secure her career-best regional finish.

BaiMai Seema put the finishing touches on her career-first postseason finish with a 2-over 74 on Wednesday. Starting with three-straight pars, Seema broke into red figures with a birdie at No. 13. Her first blemish on the card came as a bogey at No. 15 but was quickly erased by a birdie at No. 16 to turn with a 1-under 35. Back-to-back bogeys started her second nine, and she added another at No. 7. She made an impressive birdie at No. 8 with a lengthy putt before closing with a final bogey at No. 9 to claim a tie for 20th.

Rosie Belsham carded an 8-over 80 in the final round to finish tied for 41st. The senior played her first five holes at six-over and made the turn with a 5-over 41. Following five straight pars, she made bogeys at Nos. 3, 7 and 9 to finish the day.

Silje Ohma shot an 11-over 83 on Wednesday to finish in a tie for 54th. She ran into trouble early with a triple bogey at No. 11, adding bogeys at Nos. 14 and 16 before closing her outward nine with a quadruple bogey at No. 18. She improved by seven shots on her second nine, carding a 2-over 38.

HIGHLIGHTS

  *   The Bears had multiple players finish in the top-5 for the second time in three years, after Gurleen Kaur, Britta Snyder and Rosie Belsham tied for second at the 2022 Stillwater Regional.
  *   The Bears’ 292 was 11 shots better than the field average of 305 on Wednesday.
  *   BU tied for the best par-3 scoring average this week (3.20).
  *   Baylor led the field in par-4 scoring average (4.06)
  *   The Bears had the second-most birdies this week (42), one behind Florida State’s 43.
  *   Ashleen Kaur recorded the best finish by a Baylor freshman in a regional since Dylan Kim finished third at the San Antonio Regional in 2015.
  *   Kaur, Hasegawa and Seema all carded their career-best postseason finishes.
  *   Hasegawa’s 14 birdies were the most in the field.
  *   Kaur tied for the second-most birdies (13).
  *   BU has now been to four-straight NCAA Championships and six of the last seven.

QUOTABLE:
Head coach Jay Goble — “I couldn't be any more proud of this group. This has been a challenging year, to say the least, and to cap it off by getting to go to the national championship again, I couldn't be happier. The cool thing is — and we've talked about this a lot lately — we've dug ourselves out of a deep hole, and to persevere as we have shows the mark of a great team, we don't give up. They fight till the very end, and that's what we did this week, which was really cool.”

Goble on the tough conditions — “We fought really hard today. We knew early on in the week that it was going to be windy today. You had to fight for every single shot, you had to fight for your tee balls, you had to fight for an approach shots, and it was really difficult to putt out here today with the wind actually blowing the ball around a little bit. It’s great to see them perform like that under those circumstances, hitting every shot all day long with conviction. Now, we're going to get to go celebrate and go to nationals again.”

WHAT’S NEXT
The Bears will tee it up in the NCAA Championship for the fourth-straight season at the Omni La Costa Champions Course in Carlsbad, Calif., beginning Friday, May 17.

For more information on Baylor Women’s Golf, follow @BaylorWGolf on X, Instagram and Facebook.

—BaylorBears.com—

Matt Roberts | Associate Director of Athletic Communications (MBB/MGOLF/ WGOLF)
Department of Athletics | Baylor University
C: 254-227-2280
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