Ducks Advance To NCAA Semifinals

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Oregon was still alive at the NCAA women’s golf championship late Tuesday morning, after beating San Jose State in the match-play quarterfinals at Grayhawk Golf Club.

Ching-Tzu Chen, Briana Chacon and Hsin-Yu (Cynthia) Lu won their matches for the Ducks over the Spartans. No. 2-seeded Oregon advanced to face No. 3 Texas A&M in the semifinals Tuesday afternoon.

This is the first NCAA semifinal appearance in the history of the UO women’s golf program. The Ducks earlier this spring won the first Pac-12 Conference and NCAA Regional titles in their history.

Chen opened her match with birdies at No. 2 and No. 3 to go 2 up. She lost the fourth hole but won at No. 5 to get back to 2 up, and a birdie at No. 7 gave Chen a three-hole lead. She ultimately won 5&4.

Chacon was in a battle for her first 10 holes before winning four straight beginning at the par-5 11th hole. She also finished early, winning 4&3.

At that point a horse race developed to clinch the match, between Lu and Tze-Han (Heather) Lin. Up three holes with three to play, Lin was pushed to an 18th hole by her opponent. Lu was one hole behind, and her birdie on the par-4 17th hole gave her a 2&1 victory.

Lin was 1 up at No. 18 when the team race was decided. The fifth matchup saw Oregon’s Sofie Kibsgaard Nielsen drop a 2&1 decision to San Jose State’s Natasha Andrea Oon, who was runner-up on the individual leaderboard at 3 under during the four rounds of stroke play.