May 23, 2017 NCAA Championships Match Play Quarterfinals Results 
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation On paper, this looked worse than that whole David vs. Goliath matchup back in the day.
But, the Baylor women's golf team didn't play top-ranked and second-seeded Stanford on paper. This was an epic matchup that came down to the last two players on the course at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Ill.
With the team match tied at 2-2, Baylor redshirt sophomore Dylan Kim double-bogeyed the par-4 17th as Stanford freshman Albane Valuenzela closed out a 2-and-1 victory and sent the Cardinal into Tuesday afternoon's NCAA Championship semifinals.
"That's the thing about match play is that it's not over until it's over," said Baylor coach Jay Goble, whose team lost to Stanford by the same score in the 2015 national championship final. "You literally have to keep fighting and keep grinding. It's mentally a very tough way to play golf, but it's also in my opinion one of the most fun ways to play golf, to know that anything can happen. You literally have your opponent, that's it. It's just so much fun out there.
"The Stanford Cardinal have our number, that's for sure."
Just like the previous meeting, though, this one couldn't have been much closer. Baylor junior Amy Lee knocked out Stanford freshman Madie Chou early and closed it out, 6 and 5. But every other match came down to the last few holes.
Sophomore Maria Vesga "just ran into a buzzsaw" against Stanford's Andrea Lee, the third-ranked player in the nation.
"Maria was even-par through 14, and this girl was 4-under," Goble said of Lee, who closed out her match at 4 and 3 "There's a reason they won two years ago and they finished second last year, because they're really good."
Even though Fiona Liddell was matched against 20th-ranked Stanford senior Casey Danielson, Goble had a lot of confidence in his freshman because of her winning three Scottish Girls match-play championships.
And Liddell certainly made a good run at it, getting it to all-squared through the first nine holes and being 1 down with just four holes to play. But, she had back-to-back bogeys at 15 and 16 as Danielson got the second point on the board for the Cardinal with a 3-and-2 win.
The story of the day for Baylor was probably in the leadoff match between senior Maggie Beth Byers and Stanford junior Shannon Aubert, who joined Danielson as the only returners off the last two national finalist teams.
Byers, who finished 17 shots behind Aubert in the 54-hole stroke play, actually never trailed. She went 1-up on the fourth hole, got to as many as 3-up and was 1-up on 18 when the match ended.
"Maggie Beth hit it great the whole week. She hit it well, she just didn't putt it or chip it her best," Goble said. "I hung with her all day today, and she played fine. She played good golf. Again, she leaves a few shots out there on the green, but she didn't play bad."
In the deciding match, Kim had a couple putts lip out and missed three or four from four feet that could have turned it her way.
"When you're playing the No. 3 player in the world," Goble said of Valenzuela, who was the third-ranked junior in the world, "you better make those. When you play somebody that good, you better make them, and she didn't."
But, considering only one Golfweek expert picked them to get out of match play and some didn't even have them making it out of the Athens Region, the Bears had one heck of a ride.
"I'm not down at all right now," Goble said. "We gave it our all. . . . I don't think we were expected to be here, and we gave one of the best teams in the country a good run."
Byers was the lone senior on a Baylor team that was making its second trip to the match play quarterfinals in three years.
Stanford advances to face third-seeded and seventh-ranked Arizona State, while top-seeded Northwestern is playing fourth-seeded Ohio State in the other semifinal.
THE RUNDOWN
SUGAR GROVE, Ill. -- Baylor women's golf saw its run end in the 2017 NCAA Championships match play quarterfinals, as the Lady Bears fell 3-2 to No. 1-ranked Stanford on Tuesday morning at Rich Harvest Farms.
Senior Maggie Beth Byers and junior Amy Lee both won their matches, but Stanford earned points against freshman Fiona Liddell, sophomore Maria Vesga and redshirt sophomore Dylan Kim.
Lee rolled to a 6-and-5 victory in her match against Madeline Chou, winning six holes, losing none and halving seven. She won Nos. 2, 3, 7, 8 and 9 to take the turn at 5-up, then went 6-up with a win on No. 10 before halving the next three to clinch the match after 13 holes and give Baylor a 1-0 lead.
Vesga lost 4-and-3 in her tough matchup No. 3-ranked Andrea Lee. Vesga dropped Nos. 1, 4 and 5 to go 3-down early, and she won No. 6 to reduce the deficit to 2-down, but that was as close as the match would get. Lee won No. 8 to go 3-up, but Vesga responded with a win on No. 9 to take the turn 2-down. Lee clinched the match with wins on Nos. 11 and 15, giving Stanford its first point and evening the match at 1-1.
Liddell faced a difficult task against No. 20-ranked Casey Danielson, and though she never led the match, she pushed it to 16 holes before falling 3-and-2. Liddell was 2-down through seven, but she came back to win the next two holes to take the turn all-square. Danielson then won Nos. 10 and 11 to go 2-up and halved the next two holes, leaving Liddell only five holes to make up a 2-hole deficit. Liddell fought back with a win on No. 14 to get back to 1-down, but Danielson won the next two to clinch the match and give Stanford a 2-1 edge.
Kim fell 2-and-1 to No. 17-ranked Albane Valenzuela in a tightly contested match that neither player led by more than one hole until Valenzuela claimed No. 17 to seal her match and clinch Stanford's semifinal berths. Kim needed to win one of the final two holes to force a playoff, and her aggressive approach from the rough on No. 17 found the water. Kim reached the back of the green after a drop, but she missed a 15-foot bogey putt and conceded the match with Valenzuela in position to two-putt from three feet.
Byers was the first one out and defeated the nation's No. 112-ranked player Shannon Aubert, 1-and-1. The match was all-square through three holes before Byers won Nos. 4 and 5 to go 2-up. The players alternated wins over the next four holes, and Byers claimed consecutive wins on Nos. 9 and 10 to go 3-up with eight to play. Aubert rebounded with wins on Nos. 12, 15 and 16 to get back to all-square, but Byers went 1-up by winning No. 17, the final hole completed before Stanford clinched the match.
Baylor concludes its sixth season under head coach Jay Goble with the second-best NCAA Championships result in program history, trailing only the 2015 national runner-up finish. Goble has led Baylor to the NCAA Tournament in five of six seasons and is responsible for three of the four NCAA Championships berths in program history.
STANFORD 3, BAYLOR 2 (in order of finish)
No. 24 Amy Lee (BU) def. Madeline Chou (Stanford), 6-and-5
No. 3 Andrea Lee (Stanford) def. No. 101 Maria Vesga (BU), 4-and-3
No. 20 Casey Danielson (Stanford) def. Fiona Liddell (BU), 3-and-2
No. 17 Albane Valenzuela (Stanford) def. No. 82 Dylan Kim (BU), 3-and-2
Maggie Beth Byers (BU) def. No. 112 Shannon Auburn (Stanford), 1-and-1
BAYLOR'S NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS RESULTS
2004 -- t-19th place
2012 -- t-16th place
2015 -- 3rd place (lost in match play finals)
2017 -- 7th place (lost in match play quarterfinals)
WHAT'S NEXT
Baylor has completed its 2016-17 season. The Lady Bears will lose Byers to graduation, but every other player on the roster has collegiate eligibility remaining. The 2017-18 schedule will be announced this summer. Follow @BaylorWGolf on Twitter and Facebook for year-round updates.
