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Women's Golf Earns NCAA Match Play Berth

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Women's Golf 5/22/2017 12:00:00 AM
May 22, 2017

NCAA Championships Day Three Results and Statistics Get Acrobat Reader

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

Jay Goble never looks at leader boards or checks his phone for updates while his Baylor women's golf team is playing. He doesn't want to know.

It's a good thing he didn't check during Monday's final round of stroke play at the NCAA Championships in Sugar Grove, Ill. He couldn't have bought enough deodorant to stop that sweat.

"You know what, I wasn't sweating it out, because I don't look at scoreboards," Goble said after the Bears shot 18-over-par 306 and squeezed into the match play quarterfinals as the seventh seed at 53-over 917, just two shots above the cut line. "I knew it was close, that's all I knew."

That's because Goble was focused on redshirt sophomore Dylan Kim and "just trying to get her to the house."

Tied for eighth in the medalist race going into Monday's round, Kim was 7-over through the first holes with bogeys at 1, 4 and 8 and double-bogeys at 5 and 7.

"I don't know if it was nerves, I don't know if it was the conditions or exactly what it was, but she was just a little shaken up," Goble said. "When I saw her on the 8th fairway, she just had something going on where she was just not quite herself. All I did was go up to her and tell her to breathe and let's just hit one shot at a time."

With Goble walking with her, Kim parred eight of the last 10 holes and finished at 9-over 81, giving the Bears one of their four scoring rounds.

"I don't know exactly, but it had to have been a big key for us to play well," Goble said, "because when I got to her she was 6- or 7-over already."

Amy Lee helped take up the slack for Kim's early struggles, making the turn at 2-under and adding a birdie at the par-4 12th before back-to-back bogeys at 16 and 17.

With Baylor's chances seemingly slipping away, Lee hit her second shot through the green on the par-5, 476-yard 18th hole and nearly chipped in for eagle before a tap-in birdie to complete a round of 2-under 70 that clinched it for the Bears. That left her with a closing round of 2-under 70 and seventh individually at 5-over 221, just four strokes behind medalist Monica Vaughn from Arizona State.

"She's clutch, she's a great player," Goble said of Lee, who played for Southern Cal's national semifinalist team two years ago. "Amy Lee can be as good as she wants to be. She could be the player of the year in college golf, anything she wants."

Baylor also got its second straight solid round of 2-over 74 from sophomore Maria Vesga. She moved into the top 10 at one point before falling to a tie for 17th at 10-over 226 with three bogeys on the back nine.

"The thing is out here, this golf course is tough, and you can make bogey or double-bogey pretty quickly," Goble said. "For her to go out and fight her way through it and play well, I'm so proud of her. And she had that tendonitis (in her wrist) so bad for the last month, so she's not exactly playing 100 percent, either."

Freshman Fiona Liddell matched Kim at 9-over 81 with a par at the 18th, while senior Maggie Beth Byers struggled on the back side and shot 10-over 82.

Northwestern won the stroke play national championship with a 54-hole total of 33-over 897, followed by Stanford (41-over, 905), Arizona State (45-over, 909), Ohio State (49-over, 913), Southern Cal and Florida (50-over, 914), Baylor (53-over, 917) and Kent State (55-over, 919).

"All we have talked about is fighting and controlling what we can control out here," Goble said. "This group is a bunch of fighters right here. I'm super excited for the next couple of days. I've got a great group that is going to do really well."

In a rematch of the 2015 national championship, Baylor will face second-seeded and top-ranked Stanford in Tuesday's quarterfinals, with tee times beginning at 7 a.m.

"If you get into match play, you've got a chance," said Goble, whose team lost to the Cardinal, 3-2, in a memorable final. "Anything can happen, as we remember two years ago. I can tell you this, I wouldn't want to play our team in match play. Individually, we're super strong."

To advance to the semifinals, Baylor will have to win three of the five head-to-head matchups against Stanford.

Byers starts it off for the Bears and is matched against Shannon Aubert, followed by Kim versus Albane Valenzuela, Vesga against Andrea Lee, Liddell matched against Casey Danielson and Lee versus Madeline Chou.

Live scoring is available at www.golfstat.com, with Golf Channel coverage beginning at 10 a.m. The Baylor-Stanford winner would face Ohio State or Southern Cal in Tuesday afternoon's semifinals, with the championship scheduled for Wednesday.


THE RUNDOWN
SUGAR GROVE, Ill. --
Baylor women's golf earned one of eight berths in the 2017 NCAA Championships match play by finishing in seventh place in the stroke play portion of the Championships at Rich Harvest Farms.

BU shot 18-over 306 in Monday's final round and finished at 53-over 917, three stokes in front of the cut. As the No. 7 seed, Baylor will face No. 1-ranked Stanford in Tuesday's 7 a.m. CT quarterfinal match, a rematch of the 2015 title match that Stanford won in a 19th hole playoff. Stanford placed second in stroke play at 41-over 905.

Baylor and Stanford join Duke, Southern California and Washington as the nation's only programs to earn multiple match play berths in the last three seasons. BU returns only one player from the 2015 national runner-up squad in Dylan Kim, but junior Amy Lee competed for USC in that same match play.

Lee finished in seventh place in the stroke play portion, carding a final round of 2-under 70 to finish at 5-over 221, four shots behind medalist Monica Vaughn of Arizona State. Lee needed a par on the 18th hole to clinch Baylor's spot in match play, and she nearly chipped in for eagle from 20 yards out before tapping in with a birdie.

Maria Vesga tied for 17th place at 10-over 226 after shooting 2-over 74 in the final round. She took the turn at 1-under before making three bogeys over the final eight holes as wind picked up later in the round. Kim tied for 32nd place at 14-over 230 after a final round of 9-over 81. She was seven over through her first eight holes, then recovered to shoot 2-over across the final 10 holes.

Fiona Liddell carded BU's final counting score in the third round with a 9-over 81, and she tied for 102nd place individually at 26-over 242. Maggie Beth Byers shot 10-over 82 and tied for 126th place at 34-over 250.

Additional teams advancing to match play are No. 12 Northwestern (+33) as the No. 1 seed, No. 7 Arizona State (+45) as the No. 3 seed, No. 25 Ohio State (+49) as the No. 4 seed, No. 6 USC (+50) as the No. 5 seed, No. 3 Florida (+50) as the No. 6 seed and No. 14 Kent State (+55) as the No. 8 seed. No. 35 North Carolina (+56) missed the cut by one stroke, followed by No. 11 South Carolina (+59) in 10th place.

Baylor was joined in the field by two fellow Big 12 teams -- No. 16 Texas (+63), which finished in 13th place, and No. 30 Texas Tech (+87), which finished in 22nd place.

HIGHLIGHTS
- Baylor advanced to NCAA Championships match play for the second time in the last three years.
- Baylor's seventh place finish in NCAA Championships stroke play was the second-best in program history, trailing only the third place finish in 2015.
- Baylor finished fifth in the 24-team field in par-4 scoring at 49-over 4.33, tied for 19th in par-5 scoring at 13-over 5.22 and 22nd in par-3 scoring at 27-over 3.45.
- Baylor's 156 pars were fourth-most in the field.
- Amy Lee tied for second in the 132-player field in par-4 scoring at 3-over 4.10 and tied for 17th in par-5 scoring at 2-under 4.83.
- Maria Vesga tied for fourth in par-4 scoring at 4-over 4.13.
- Vesga's 38 pars over 54 holes tied for second-most in the field, while Lee tied for sixth with 36 pars.
- Dylan Kim tied for 17th in par-4 scoring at 8-over 4.27.
- Lee tied for 20th in the field with seven birdies.
- Lee made birdie on the 407-yard, par-3 fourth hole in the final round. It was one of only 11 birdies made on the hole out of 396 times it was played during the tournament.

STAT OF THE DAY
5 -- the number of teams to earn multiple match play berths at the NCAA Championships in the last three seasons. Baylor, Duke, Stanford, USC and Washington are the only teams to advance to match play at least two times since 2015.

WHAT'S NEXT
Tuesday's quarterfinal match between Baylor and Stanford tees off at 7 a.m. CT from the first hole. Golf Channel's coverage begins with a pregame show at 9:30 a.m. and live coverage at 10:30 a.m. Matchups are as follows: 7 a.m. -- Maggie Beth Byers vs. Shannon Aubert, 7:10 a.m. -- Dylan Kim vs. Albane Valenzuela, 7:20 a.m. -- Maria Vesga vs. Andrea Lee, 7:30 a.m. -- Fiona Liddell vs. Casey Danielson and 7:40 a.m. -- Amy Lee vs. Madeline Chou. Live scoring is available at www.GolfStat.com. Follow @BaylorWGolf on Twitter and Facebook for updates throughout the season.

BAYLOR'S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS STROKE PLAY RESULTS
2004 -- t-19th place
2012 -- t-16th place
2015 -- 3rd place
2017 -- 7th place

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Players Mentioned

Amy Lee

Amy Lee

5' 7"
Junior
Fiona Liddell

Fiona Liddell

5' 5"
Freshman
Maria Vesga

Maria Vesga

5' 7"
Freshman
Dylan Kim

Dylan Kim

5' 7"
Freshman
Maggie Byers

Maggie Byers

5' 9"
Freshman

Players Mentioned

Amy Lee

Amy Lee

5' 7"
Junior
Fiona Liddell

Fiona Liddell

5' 5"
Freshman
Maria Vesga

Maria Vesga

5' 7"
Freshman
Dylan Kim

Dylan Kim

5' 7"
Freshman
Maggie Byers

Maggie Byers

5' 9"
Freshman