Amari Avery of USC captured the individual title by one stroke over top-ranked Rose Zhang of Stanford and led the Trojans to an eight-shot victory over Stanford and LSU in the NCAA Stanford Regional at Stanford Golf Course in Palo Alto.
Eighth-ranked USC posted a score of 280-276-281—837, 15-under-par, to claim its NCAA record 14th regional title, while top-ranked Stanford finished at 283-277-285—845, and LSU wound up at 279-284-282—845.
“This was an incredible week for a group that was very much deserving of it,” Stanford Coach Justin Silverstein said. “They have worked very hard and very smartly the past few weeks to put themselves in position to make a deep postseason run. … I expect that they’ll perform very well at Grayhawk (in the NCAA finals).
“Amari’s play this spring has been spectacular and this win should put her in the National Player of the Year discussion.”
Purdue totaled 285-291-288—864 to tie for fourth with Northwestern, which finished at 287-289-288—864, while Princeton was sixth at 295-291-287—873, and Kentucky shot 295-291-289—875 to tie for seventh with Texas Tech, which wound up at 295-292-288—875.
Iowa State was ninth at 287-294-296—877, followed by Cal Poly San Luis Obispo at 304-288-287—879, Nevada Las Vegas at 310-299-289—898, and Sacred Heart of Connecticut at 324-314-300—938.
Avery, a USC freshman from Riverside, took home her third title of the season by recording a score of 69-67-68—204, 9-under, while Zhang, a Stanford freshman from Irvine, shot 69-70-66—205.
Brianna Navarrosa of USC was third at 70-68-68—206, followed by Carla Tejedo of LSU at 70-68-70—208, Ingrid Lindblad of LSU at 69-71-69—209, Micaela Morard of USC at 70-71-69—210, and Ruby Chou of Iowa State at 68-73-70—211.
Brooke Seay of Stanford carded a score of 69-73-70—212 to tie for eighth with Latanna Stone of LSU, who finished at 67-75-70—212, while Taglao Jeeravivitaporn of Iowa State totaled 71-71-71—213 to tie for 10th with Jieni Li of Northwestern, who came in at 72-68-73—213.
Kaylyn Noh led Cal Poly SLO in a tie for 19th at 73-74-70—217, Riana Mission of San Francisco tied for 47th at 76-75-76—227, and Jennifer Koga of Sacramento State tied for 58th at 76-77-80—233.
Rounding out the scoring for team champion USC, Cindy Kou shot 71-73-76—220 and finished in a tie for 30th that included Trojan teammate Katherine Muzi, who wound up at 73-70-77—220.
For complete results, visit https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=25454
