BATON ROUGE — LSU’s ninth-ranked women’s golf team advanced to NCAA Regional play for the 11th time in the last 13 years Tuesday as they were made the fourth-seed in the Central Regional in Lubbock, Texas.
In all, 63 teams were selected to regionals May 5-7 in Lubbock, Gainesville, Fla., and Las Cruces, N. M., to determine the final 24 teams which will take part in the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championships at the Meadows Course at Sunriver Resort, Ore., May 17-20. The top eight teams and the top two individual players not on the top eight teams from each region will advance to the champion.
The Lady Tigers will be trying to advance to the championship tournament for the first time since 2001.
The top seed in the Central Regional is seventh-ranked (Golfstat poll) Auburn, the automatic qualifiers as the winners of the Southeastern Conference Tournament in Tunica, Miss. LSU finished two shots out of the playoff with Auburn and Georgia in that event. The second seed is fourth-ranked Arizona State with 12th-ranked New Mexico the third seed in front of LSU.
The other teams in seed order are Wake Forest (17th), Texas (22nd), Missouri (14th), Arkansas (20th), Michigan, Tulsa (24th-WAC Champs), SMU, Purdue, Michigan State, Kent State (Mid-America champs), Baylor, Texas A&M, South Florida, Texas Tech, Notre Dame and Long Island (Northeast Champs).
“I liked the way things played out and how the teams were placed,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen after listening to the NCAA selection teleconference at the Golf House at the University Club with her team. “You could tell how excited the kids were about the selection and where they are going. It’s a solid field, but I certainly like our chances. We have to continue to be able to play the golf course and not worry about the other teams. We will work on keeping our focus on that and go from there.”
The tournament is being played on The Rawls Course, a par 72 layout that is one of the few courses that features back-to-back par fives to close the round on 17 and 18. The course was built for the Texas Tech golf teams from a major financial gift from Jerry Rawls and the course averages some 30,000 rounds a year, primarily from students, alumni and the general public.
Several other SEC teams also made the event as joining host Florida in the East Regional is: Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt. Also in this region as the champions from Conference USA is 11th-ranked Tulane.
The West Region features Georgia as the second seed and Tennessee as the fourth seed.