Castlewarden’s Lauren Walsh played a key role in helping the Wake Forest women’s golf team join Stanford, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, Arizona and USC in advancing to the 2021 National Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Phoenix, Arizona from May 21-26.
Sophomore Walsh played like her typically consistent self all week for the Deacs, carding rounds of 71-72-71 to finish at one-over par. Two birdies and a bogey on the first nine were followed by a birdie and two bogeys on the second nine to stay at even par for the round with Walsh tying 15th on the individual leaderboard.
The Stanford Regional was the only one of the four to have two ACC teams advance to the Championships. Florida State and Duke each advanced from their Regional sites and the Baton Rouge site, where Miami’s Sara Byrne was due to compete, did not have any ACC team advance after controversially not being able to play due to weather. The top six seeds from Baton Rouge will automatically advance.
If y’all support women’s sports, you should be paying attention to what the @NCAA did to the women at the Baton Rouge regional. My heart breaks for the seniors whose golf careers led to this moment, just for it to be taken from them. pic.twitter.com/SBcewlVJoW
— Madison Kerley (@madisondion) May 13, 2021
Senior Emilia Migliaccio continued to lead the charge for the Deacs on the final day, shooting even par for the round with a birdie and bogey on the first nine and a birdie and bogey on the second nine. Migliaccio carded a two-under 211 as the low Deac, good for a tie for sixth place on the individual leaderboard.
Sophomore Rachel Kuehn was the third Demon Deacon to finish inside the top 25, coming in at T24 with an overall score of three-over 216. She birdied two of her last three holes in the final round to shoot one-over for the day. Junior Vanessa Knecht and senior Siyun Liu finished T33 after each shooting a 74 on the final day.
“We are proud of this team for coming out and competing on a tough golf course,” said head coach Kim Lewellen. “Our goal is always to make it to Championships but to do that you have to be able to compete at Regionals. We had one of the tougher fields of the four and were ready to play.
“We recovered well yesterday after a tough opening round and were able to stay in contention today to get the job done. We are very excited to be headed to Arizona next week and can’t wait to compete for a title.”
- Full scoring HERE
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