Men’s Golf | May 14, 2022
Jackson Rivera, a 2022 All-Pac-12 second teamer who leads USC in stroke average, rounds in the 60s and top 20 finishes, is set to continue one of the best freshman seasons in school history as an individual entry at the NCAA Championships Stockton (Calif.) Regional, Monday through Wednesday (May 16-18), at The Reserve at Spanos Park, hosted by Pacific.
Rivera, also a 2022 All-Pac-12 Freshman Teamer, boasts a team-best stroke average of 71.88, currently inside USC’s all-time top 25 season chart. He has not finished outside the top 36 in any event this season.
While USC did not qualify for regionals as a team, Rivera will be part of the 14-team, five-individual regional in Stockton, where he is seeded second among individuals. The low individual on a team not advancing out of each of the six regional sites will advance to the 2022 NCAA Championships, set for May 27 to June 1 at Grayhawk G.C. in Scottsdale, Ariz.
The field in Stockton includes No. 1 seed Arizona States, No. 2 Washington, No. 3 Stanford, No. 4 LSU, No. 5 Oregon, No. 6 Nevada, No. 7 Liberty, No. 8 BYU, No. 9 UAB, No. 10 Houston, No. 11 UC Davis, No. 12 Denver, No. 13 Abilene Christian and No. 14 Weber State.
Individuals in addition to Rivera include No. 1 seed Caden Fioroni (UNLV), No. 3 Tyler Schafer (Long Beach State), No. 4 Nathan Cogswell (Seattle) and No. 5 Nate Deziel (North Dakota State).
Jackson is having one of the best freshman seasons in recent USC history. In two of his last three events, he has posted career-best-tying efforts.
Most recently, he tied for sixth at the 2022 Pac-12 Championships at par 284 (73-68-74-69) and that followed the same finish in the Valspar Collegiate at 9-under 204 (66-68-70) in which he reached a streak of eight rounds of par or better in in a nine-round stretch (including six under par).
Rivera, with a team-best eight rounds in the 60s, leads the Trojans with a team-best 20 rounds of par or better, including 17 under par. Rivera, who has been USC’s top finisher in eight of its 11 events, has six top 21 finishes, seven top 28s and has not finished outside the top 36 in any event.
He posted rounds of 65 and 63 at the Arizona N.I.T., the latter being USC’s first 63 since Kaito Onishi in November of 2017 and the Trojans’ first 9-under effort since Rico Hoey earlier that year in…
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