NCAA Women's Golf Championship: Semifinals to continue Wednesday morning
Four teams, fresh of an early morning quarterfinal, took on the semifinal match play round all vying for a spot in Wednesday's final round. Stanford, ASU, USC and Northwestern battled through fatigue, cold, thunder and lightning well into the evening, forcing a postponement until early Wednesday morning in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
Update: after attempting to finish the round, the semis have been called for darkness. We'll update when we know a start time for tomorrow
— Sun Devil W. Golf (@SunDevilGolf) May 24, 2017
Thunder and lightning hit the Rich Harvest Farms, suspending a tight competition between Pac-12 foes Stanford and Arizona State. The pairs left the links with Stanford at a slight 3-1-1 edge.
Stanford's Shannon Aubert was 3 up on Roberta Liti through 11 holes, Casey Danielson 2 up through 11 on the Sun Devils' Sophia Zeeb and Madie Chou 1 up on Linnea Strom after 10. But the individual medalist Monica Vaughn and freshman Olivia Mehaffey kept the Sun Devils within striking distance; Vaughn held a 2 up advantage over Albane Valenzuela and Mehaffey was 1 up on Andrea Lee.
Mehaffey gave ASU the first point, defeating Stanford standout Lee 2 up with a hole to go. Shannon Aubert tied it up quickly, taking the 3&2 win against Liti. Danielson followed that with a 4&3 win over Zeeb.
Valenzuela came back strong from the delay and went 1 up on Vaughn thru 17. ASU put in motion a bold strategy with the sun setting on the 18th hole. The NCAA rules say that both parties within the matched pair must agree to continue. Since Valenzuela was on a hot streak, ASU and Vaughn called to suspend the match until the next day. Stanford has the 3-1-1 edge.
Right now, on 18 tee pic.twitter.com/dd5Pk6AUz3
— Stanford WGolf (@StanfordWGolf) May 24, 2017
The local favorites Northwestern are on the brink of succumbing to the curse of the No. 1 seed.
The Trojans managed to hold a lead on four of five matches heading into the back nine and the weather delay. Victoria Morgan, Robyn Ree, Muni He and Gabriella Then were 1 up on their Northwestern opponents, Stephanie Lau was one up on USC's Tiffany Chan thru 6.
Chan came back after the weather delay and gained a shot on Lau to make the pair all square going into the ninth hole, where she took a 1-up lead. But Northwestern kept within striking distance down the stretch. Sarah Cho went 1 up against Morgan thru 14.
All five matches will continue Wednesday morning, but USC escaped the day with a 4-1 edge.