Arizona State rallied in the final round to defeat Stanford by two strokes in the NCAA Las Vegas Men’s Golf Regional and the Sun Devils did with a record-breaking performance.
Stanford held a four-stroke lead entering the last round, but Arizona State claimed its second victory of the season by posting an NCAA record score of 65-67-68-267, 21-under-par, and also shattered another tournament record with a total score of 262-276-267—805, 59-under-par, while Stanford wound up 268-266-273—807 at the Bear’s Best in Las Vegas.
“It’s always really hard to follow a peak performance with another great performance,” said Arizona State Coach Matt Thurmond, whose Sun Devils recently won the Thunderbird Intercollegiate and finished second in the Pacific 12 Conference Tournament. “Our second round wasn’t great, but it was good enough to set up a special day today.
“To shoot 59-under-par is crazy! The guys did amazing and I’m very proud of them.”
Said Stanford Coach Conrad Ray: “We are super excited to advance to the NCAA Championships. We wanted to pick up the win, but the guys played really solid and kept the accelerator down the whole week. It was also great to get contributions throughout the lineup and that’s what it takes to win the big one. We’re looking forward to a few days on campus to rest up and get ready for a long week Grayhawk, but one that we feel good about and prepared for.”
Virginia finished third at 269-274-272—815, followed by San Francisco at 277-268-274—819, followed by Northwestern at 278-268-275—821, which tied for fifth with East Tennessee State, which wound up at 272-275-274—821.
The top five teams advanced to the NCAA Championships, later this month, and Northwestern knocked out East Tennessee State in a tiebreaker.
Oklahoma State was seventh at 276-275-278—829, followed by Cincinnati at 277-280-278—835, and North Carolina Greensboro at 276-279-281—836.
Long Beach State totaled 285-278-278—841 to tie for 10th with Oregon State, which finished at 277-279-285—841, while Kansas City was 12th 289-280-277—846, followed by Davidson at 276-286-293—855, and Lehigh at 294-293-293—880.
Matthew Anderson of San Francisco, a graduate student from Canada, shot 66-64-66—196, 20-under-par, and tied for the individual title with Ben James of Virginia, who finished at 65-66-65—196, while Preston Summerhays of Arizona State was third at 62-70-65—197, followed by Ethan Ng of Stanford at 64-66-68—198.
Michael Thorbjornsen of Stanford carded a score of 63-68-70—201 to tie for fifth with Jonas Baumgartner of Oklahoma State, who totaled 70-68-63—201, David Svard of Northwestern, who wound up at 68-68-85—201, and Jose Luis Ballester of Arizona State, who wound up at 64-70—67—201.
Ian Gilligan of Long Beach State posted a score of 66-70-67—203 to tie for ninth with Nick Lyerly of North Carolina Greensboro, who finished at 70-69-64—203, Sam Jean of Cincinnati, who wound up at 69-67-67—203, Michael Mjaaseth of Arizona State, who totaled 67-68-68—203, and Algott Kleen of East Tennessee State, who came in at 67-68-69—203.
The 2023 NCAA Men’s Golf Championships will be played May 26-31 at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.
For complete results, visit: https://results.golfstat.com//public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=participants&tid=27710
