A member of BYU’s girls’s golf staff tees off throughout the 2023 Riverside Basic. Nate Edwards/BYU Photograph
Editor’s word: Eleventh in a collection of articles inspecting how every BYU program will stack up towards its new convention foes. In the present day’s program: girls’s golf.
The BYU girls’s golf program comes into the autumn of 2023 after ending final season ranked No. 64 within the remaining Golfweek/Sagarin Rankings and second on the WCC championships.
Such a season has been pretty commonplace for the Cougars all through their historical past. BYU did have a run of three straight convention titles from 2016-18, however these have been the primary championships since 1992.
BYU has competed within the NCAA postseason 19 occasions, most not too long ago in 2022. The Cougars’ final NCAA championships look was in 2016, ending 24th. BYU has completed within the prime 25 5 occasions in program historical past, with the very best all-time end coming in 1982 at twelfth general.
As well as, three alumnae play on the LPGA Tour: Pam Miller Gietzen, Chris Lehmann Vatcher and Carrie Summerhays Roberts, the Cougars’ present head coach.
Now with a recent convention comes a recent begin and a younger roster. Just one senior, Lila Galeai, returns. She’ll be joined by junior Adeline Anderson, who received the 2023 BYU Riverside Basic and completed a team-best sixth on the convention match final 12 months, and sophomore Berlin Lengthy, who certified for the U.S. Ladies’s Newbie Championship beginning Aug. 7.
Lily DeNunzio from Henderson, Nevada, and Maria Barragan out of Morelia, Mexico, signed with the Cougars in November and are new to the roster. Incoming transfers embody sophomore Lily McCauley, who's going from one Cougars staff to the subsequent after taking part in a 12 months at Washington State, and sophomore Whitney Banz, who attended Westminster in Salt Lake Metropolis for the 2020-21 college 12 months and was a two-sport athlete on each the golf and basketball groups earlier than serving a church mission in Thailand.
Large 12 girls’s golf
Each program besides West Virginia sponsors girls’s golf within the convention. Final 12 months, Oklahoma State claimed its 11th Large 12 title and its second in three years with a seven-stroke victory over second-place Baylor. Texas or Oklahoma State has received each Large 12 championship since 2016.
9 Large 12 groups performed within the 2023 NCAA postseason with Baylor, Oklahoma State, TCU, Texas, and Texas Tech among the many 30 groups to advance out of Regionals to play within the finals. The Longhorns managed to make it the eight-team match play bracket earlier than bowing out.
Solely TCU has ever received an NCAA championship, doing so in 1983, however Baylor (2015), Oklahoma (2014), Oklahoma State (2004, ’16, ’21) and Texas (2002) have all completed nationwide runner-up.
How will BYU fare?
Each Large 12 program has competed within the NCAA postseason every of the final three years besides 4: BYU, Cincinnati, Kansas and Kansas State. The Cougars will seemingly need to battle to remain out of the underside portion of the league; a convention championship isn’t within the close to future. However a P5 bump in recruiting, funding and competitors will enhance a program that has been to the postseason 4 occasions within the final seven seasons.