Monday, May 10
Stanford, CA
8 a.m.
vs
NCAA Stanford Regional
Caroline Cantlay, who finished second in the 2021 Big West Championship, tees off in the final round at the Yorba Linda Country Club on April 20.
Photo by: Photo by John Fajardo
Cal Poly to Compete in NCAA Stanford Regional Next Week
5/6/2021 2:16:00 PM | Women's Golf
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Four years ago, the Cal Poly women's golf team earned its first Big West Conference championship and was rewarded with a berth in the NCAA's Albuquerque Regional. The squad back then had little experience or information about the course, the UNM South Championship Course at the University of New Mexico.
Next week, armed with the program's second Big West title more than two weeks ago at the Yorba Linda Country Club, Coach Sofie Aagaard's Mustangs will play on a course with a little more familiarity.
"We know the course will be played long, with thick rough and fast and firm greens," Aagaard said of the Stanford Golf Course, site of the 2021 NCAA Stanford Regional. "Four out of our five players in the lineup as well as myself have played and seen the course before, so we have a good idea what we are up against."
Competition in the 18-team regional begins Monday on the 6,269-yard, par-71 layout. Cal Poly tees off at 9:50 a.m. with Sacramento State and Navy.
"We are excited and ready to compete," said Aagaard, in her sixth season as head coach at Cal Poly. "We are seeded 16 out of 18 teams in a very strong field, statistically the toughest regional out of the four around the nation. It will take a very good three days of competition for this team to advance."
Six individuals will join the 18 teams at each of four regional sites. Other regionals are being held at Noblesville, Indiana (host: Ball State), Tallahassee, Florida (host: Florida State) and Stillwater, Oklahoma (host: Oklahoma State).
The low six teams and the low three individuals not on those teams from each regional will advance to the 2021 NCAA Division I Women's Golf National Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, on May 21-26.
With the fall season wiped out by the pandemic, the Mustangs compressed six tournaments into their spring season against stronger competition than usual and came away with a trio of top-three finishes.
Cal Poly won the season-opening Valley Invitational at Bakersfield, finished second in The Gold Rush at Seal Beach and placed third in the Fresno State Classic thanks in part to five individual rounds of par or better, including a 66 by Caroline Cantlay and a 67 by Vanessa Wang.
"This spring season with a very tough competitive schedule has prepared us for next week," said Aagaard. "We played with strong fields as well as on courses that were set up hard. Great shots will be rewarded and not-so-good shots will be heavily penalized.
"We call it championship golf when it is important to limit the damage from a poor shot, to take bogey at most," Aagaard added. "Keeping bad holes at bogey will be helpful through the week as it is the bigger numbers that will add up and take you out of the top spots.
"Birdies and pars will be harder to get to, but with the increased focus on lag putting and improved par-5 strategy and execution this team has worked on over the past couple of months, I'm excited to see where we will stack up in this field."
Cal Poly's quintet for the 2021 conference finals consisted of Cantlay, Wang, Elizabeth Scholtes, Nicole Neale and Madi Daniel. That group produced team season lows for 18, 36 and 54 holes.
Neale, the lone Mustang freshman to compete in this year's conference tournament and next week's regional, has compiled a 75.2 scoring average with five top-20 finishes, including a second-place effort in the Valley Invitational.
Cantlay brings a 75.5 scoring average and second-place Big West finish to the regional. Wang is averaging 75.8 strokes per round, Scholtes 76.3 and Daniel 80.9. Both Cantlay and Wang earned their fourth top-20 finish of the season at the Big West finals. Scholtes has three for the year.
Wang was 10th while Scholtes and Neale both finished 12th in the Big West finals as Cal Poly edged UC Davis by two strokes, Long Beach State by four and UC Irvine by six for the conference crown, the program's 27th tournament title since Mustang women's golf teed off for the first time during the 2000-01 season.
In addition to Cal Poly, the teams competing at Stanford will be top-seeded Wake Forest along with Oklahoma State, USC, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Arizona, Florida, Northwestern, Iowa State, Denver, TCU, San Diego State, Pepperdine, San Jose State, New Mexico State, Sacramento State and Navy.
The teams will play a practice round on Sunday, followed by 18 holes of play each day Monday through Wednesday.
The six individuals at Stanford include Big West individual champion Holland Shourds of Long Beach State and Brittany Shin, an at-large selection from Cal State Fullerton.
Others are Samantha Fuller of UNLV, Brigitte Thibault of Fresno State, Allysha Mae Mateo of BYU and Victoria Estrada of Utah Valley.
Spectators will be permitted, but there are spectator limitations at the Stanford Regional due to local health guidelines. The Stanford Regional spectator policy currently allows up to four family guests per student-athlete and coach. These spectators must be California residents (with valid California ID or current Stanford ID) OR fully vaccinated non-California residents (with vaccination card).
People are considered fully vaccinated against COVID-19 two full weeks after they have received the second dose in a two-dose series (Pfizer or Moderna) or two full weeks after they have received a single dose (Johnson & Johnson). These requirements apply to individuals who have recently tested negative for COVID-19 or positive for the COVID-19 antibodies.
Twenty-six conferences received automatic qualification to the 2021 Division I Women's Golf Championships. In 2019, Duke claimed its seventh NCAA Division I Women's Golf National Championship, the first since 2014, defeating Wake Forest 3-2-0 at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Next week, armed with the program's second Big West title more than two weeks ago at the Yorba Linda Country Club, Coach Sofie Aagaard's Mustangs will play on a course with a little more familiarity.
"We know the course will be played long, with thick rough and fast and firm greens," Aagaard said of the Stanford Golf Course, site of the 2021 NCAA Stanford Regional. "Four out of our five players in the lineup as well as myself have played and seen the course before, so we have a good idea what we are up against."
Competition in the 18-team regional begins Monday on the 6,269-yard, par-71 layout. Cal Poly tees off at 9:50 a.m. with Sacramento State and Navy.
"We are excited and ready to compete," said Aagaard, in her sixth season as head coach at Cal Poly. "We are seeded 16 out of 18 teams in a very strong field, statistically the toughest regional out of the four around the nation. It will take a very good three days of competition for this team to advance."
Six individuals will join the 18 teams at each of four regional sites. Other regionals are being held at Noblesville, Indiana (host: Ball State), Tallahassee, Florida (host: Florida State) and Stillwater, Oklahoma (host: Oklahoma State).
The low six teams and the low three individuals not on those teams from each regional will advance to the 2021 NCAA Division I Women's Golf National Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, on May 21-26.
With the fall season wiped out by the pandemic, the Mustangs compressed six tournaments into their spring season against stronger competition than usual and came away with a trio of top-three finishes.
Cal Poly won the season-opening Valley Invitational at Bakersfield, finished second in The Gold Rush at Seal Beach and placed third in the Fresno State Classic thanks in part to five individual rounds of par or better, including a 66 by Caroline Cantlay and a 67 by Vanessa Wang.
"This spring season with a very tough competitive schedule has prepared us for next week," said Aagaard. "We played with strong fields as well as on courses that were set up hard. Great shots will be rewarded and not-so-good shots will be heavily penalized.
"We call it championship golf when it is important to limit the damage from a poor shot, to take bogey at most," Aagaard added. "Keeping bad holes at bogey will be helpful through the week as it is the bigger numbers that will add up and take you out of the top spots.
"Birdies and pars will be harder to get to, but with the increased focus on lag putting and improved par-5 strategy and execution this team has worked on over the past couple of months, I'm excited to see where we will stack up in this field."
Cal Poly's quintet for the 2021 conference finals consisted of Cantlay, Wang, Elizabeth Scholtes, Nicole Neale and Madi Daniel. That group produced team season lows for 18, 36 and 54 holes.
Neale, the lone Mustang freshman to compete in this year's conference tournament and next week's regional, has compiled a 75.2 scoring average with five top-20 finishes, including a second-place effort in the Valley Invitational.
Cantlay brings a 75.5 scoring average and second-place Big West finish to the regional. Wang is averaging 75.8 strokes per round, Scholtes 76.3 and Daniel 80.9. Both Cantlay and Wang earned their fourth top-20 finish of the season at the Big West finals. Scholtes has three for the year.
Wang was 10th while Scholtes and Neale both finished 12th in the Big West finals as Cal Poly edged UC Davis by two strokes, Long Beach State by four and UC Irvine by six for the conference crown, the program's 27th tournament title since Mustang women's golf teed off for the first time during the 2000-01 season.
In addition to Cal Poly, the teams competing at Stanford will be top-seeded Wake Forest along with Oklahoma State, USC, Virginia Tech, Stanford, Arizona, Florida, Northwestern, Iowa State, Denver, TCU, San Diego State, Pepperdine, San Jose State, New Mexico State, Sacramento State and Navy.
The teams will play a practice round on Sunday, followed by 18 holes of play each day Monday through Wednesday.
The six individuals at Stanford include Big West individual champion Holland Shourds of Long Beach State and Brittany Shin, an at-large selection from Cal State Fullerton.
Others are Samantha Fuller of UNLV, Brigitte Thibault of Fresno State, Allysha Mae Mateo of BYU and Victoria Estrada of Utah Valley.
Spectators will be permitted, but there are spectator limitations at the Stanford Regional due to local health guidelines. The Stanford Regional spectator policy currently allows up to four family guests per student-athlete and coach. These spectators must be California residents (with valid California ID or current Stanford ID) OR fully vaccinated non-California residents (with vaccination card).
People are considered fully vaccinated against COVID-19 two full weeks after they have received the second dose in a two-dose series (Pfizer or Moderna) or two full weeks after they have received a single dose (Johnson & Johnson). These requirements apply to individuals who have recently tested negative for COVID-19 or positive for the COVID-19 antibodies.
Twenty-six conferences received automatic qualification to the 2021 Division I Women's Golf Championships. In 2019, Duke claimed its seventh NCAA Division I Women's Golf National Championship, the first since 2014, defeating Wake Forest 3-2-0 at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Players Mentioned
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