Three Pac-12 teams advance to match play at 2021 NCAA Women's Golf Championship
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SAN FRANCISCO - A national-best three Pac-12 programs emerged from 72 holes of stroke play on Monday to advance to the eight-team match play at the 2021 NCAA Women's Golf Championship hosted by ARIZONA STATE at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. Additionally, STANFORD's Rachel Heck won the individual national title as the top-four finishers all came from Pac-12 schools.
Attention now turns to determining the team national champion through a match-play bracket that has been dominated by the Pac-12 since adjusting format in 2015.
The Pac-12 has led all leagues in match play qualifiers in each of the six stagings since the shift in format, a total of 22 team match-play participants that is nearly triple the next closest leagues (ACC, SEC - 8). The Conference has also produced four different NCAA team national champions in match play (Stanford 2015, Washington 2016, Arizona State 2017, Arizona 2018), and 19 combined national titles all-time.
2021 NCAA Women's Golf Match Play Quarterfinals
No. 1 STANFORD vs. No. 8 ARIZONA
No. 4 Ole Miss vs. No. 5 Texas
No. 2 Duke vs. No. 7 ARIZONA STATE
No. 3 Oklahoma State vs. No. 6 Auburn
2021 Match Play Quarterfinals by Conference (Total teams since 2015)
3 - Pac-12 (22)
2 - SEC (8)
2 - Big 12 (6)
1 - ACC (8)
STANFORD easily secured the No. 1 seed for match play by posting a four-round 10-under-par 1,142, 13 shots clear of No. 2 seed Duke. Host ASU and ARIZONA also made the eight-team cut as the No. 7 and 8 seeds, respectively.
The Cardinal and Wildcats will meet in Tuesday's match play quarterfinals, while the Sun Devils will square off against the Blue Devils.
The Cardinal were led by Pac-12 individual champion Rachel Heck, who won her fifth straight event and program-record sixth of her freshman season with an 8-under 280 total.
Heck is the first individual national champion for the Stanford program, the ninth freshman in NCAA history, and the 17th national medalist in Pac-12 history. She also joined Arizona's Marisa Baena (1996) and USC's Annie Park (2013) as the only freshmen in NCAA history to record league, regional and national titles in the same season.
Heck was the headliner of a Pac-12-laden individual leaderboard as the top four finishers all came from the Conference - runner-up Emma Spitz of UCLA (-7 281), third place Angelina Ye of Stanford (-6 282), and fourth place Ashley Menne of Arizona State (-3 285).