April 25, 2018 Mountain West Championship Video | @UNLVWGolf
LAS VEGAS (UNLVRebels.com) - Coming off its third straight Mountain West Championship, the UNLV women's golf team learned where it will travel for the program's 16th consecutive NCAA Regional appearance after the field was announced live on the Golf Channel Wednes
day. The Rebels will head to the Tallahassee Regional to play at the Don Veller Seminole Golf Course & Club, May 7-9. Florida State will serve as the host institution.
UNLV will be the 11th seed in the region, with Alabama selected as the top seed in the field, followed by No. 2 Furman and fellow West Coast programs Arizona and Washington as the three and four seeds, respectively. In total 18 teams were selected for the region, including seven teams currently ranked in Golfstat's top 25, led by the second-ranked Crimson Tide.
"Any time you have the opportunity to move on and play in a regional, you're excited about it," said head coach
Amy Bush-Herzer. "It will be a new experience for us playing in Florida, but we played really well at the conference tournament and I think we will keep that momentum going at regionals."
The three-day 54-hole tournament will be played at the home course of the Florida State men's and women's golf programs. Tallahassee is one of four regional sites around the country with each host site featuring 18 teams and six individual entrants. The six teams and three individuals not on those teams with the lowest scores from each regional will advance to the finals to make up the 24 qualifying teams and 12 individuals that will compete for the NCAA title. The three other sites are San Francisco, California; Austin, Texas; and Madison, Wisconsin. The Scarlet & Gray captured its third straight and seventh overall conference title in program history at the 2018 Mountain West Championship, April 16-18, in Rancho Mirage, California. Four of those seven titles have come under the tutelage of Bush-Herzer, who has been at the helm of the program for seven years. The Rebels earned three consecutive titles for the second time in program history, with the program earning its first three titles from 2004-06. For the second year in a row, UNLV held off second-place San Diego State, this time by eight strokes as the wire-to-wire winner. Playing in her final conference tournament, senior
Mackenzie Raim came up just short of medalist honors, finishing one-shot off the lead in second place at 2-under. Overall, four of five Rebels finished in the top 10 on the individual leaderboard, with freshman
Polly Mack in a tie for 8th at 4-over and juniors
Shannon Oh and
Elizabeth Prior in a tie for 10th at 5-over.
The league tournament win was also UNLV's fourth team win of the season - the other three all coming in Las Vegas. The Rebels won both of their home tournaments - the Las Vegas Collegiate Showdown in October and the Rebel Beach Invitational in February - in addition to the Jackrabbit Invitational in March, which was held locally at Boulder Creek Golf Club.
The 2018 NCAA Division I Women's Golf Championship will be hosted by Oklahoma State, May 18-23, at the Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The format for the championships will consist of three days (54 holes) of stroke play for all participating teams, Friday through Sunday. The top 15 teams and nine individuals not on an advancing team will then compete in the final round on Monday and an individual champion will be determined.
After Monday, the top eight teams will advance to the match-play team championship. The team national champions will be determined by a match-play format consisting of quarterfinals and semifinals played on Tuesday, followed by the finals on Wednesday.
Below are the teams and individuals selected to participate in the Tallahassee Regional. Teams winning automatic qualification are designated by their conferences in parenthesis. Play begins Monday, May 7 at 8 a.m. ET.
NCAA TALLAHASSEE REGIONAL -- May 7-9Don Veller Seminole Golf Course & Club - Tallahassee, Florida
Hosted by Florida State 1. Alabama
2. Furman (Southern)
3. Arizona
4. Washington
5. Wake Forest
6. Vanderbilt
7. Florida State
8. Clemson
9. Georgia
10. Tennessee
11. UNLV (Mountain West)
12. Kennesaw State (Atlantic Sun)
13. Denver
14. Coastal Carolina (Sun Belt)
15. Missouri
16. College of Charleston (South Carolina) (Colonial Athletic Association)
17. Richmond (Patriot)
18. Albany (Metro Atlantic)
Individuals:
1. Hee Ying Loy - East Tennessee State University
2. Claudia De Antonio - Louisiana State University
3. Fernanda Lira - University of Central Arkansas
4. Emma Svensson - University of Central Arkansas
5. Valentina Giraldo - Jacksonville State University
6. Kaeli Jones - University of Central Florida
