Jenna Birch promised her two seniors, Viktoria Krnacova and Agatha Alesson, that they would make an NCAA Regional during their time at Little Rock if they decided to commit. They did so, and then Birch and the duo, her first recruiting class as head coach, helped make that promise come true.
However, it was almost taken away because of travel issues.
The Little Rock women’s golf team is the 12th seed at the Bryan NCAA Regional, which begins Monday. It’s the program’s first appearance in school history in regional competition. The Trojans were supposed to arrive in College Station, Texas, on Friday, but they didn’t get their until Saturday because of severe weather across Texas in recent days. However, their 23 bags, including golf clubs and all their clothes, didn’t get to College Station until early Sunday morning, and the story is difficult to believe.
“I was telling the airline employees that I get mistakes happen, but when it could cost my team a chance at doing something they’ve never done before, it’s just wrong,” Birch said.
The story began Friday, when the Little Rock women’s team was set to fly to Dallas and then Houston before driving to College Station. When coming into Dallas, storms hit the area, forcing the plane to go to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to refuel before continuing on to Dallas.
The Trojans missed their connecting flight to Houston when the 55-minute flight took nearly three hours. Then, the team said that American Airlines employees told them all of the flights from Dallas to Houston and College Station were fully booked on Saturday, and they couldn’t get the traveling party of nine all on them on flights.
On Friday night, Birch and her team stayed in the Hyatt Regency at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport before waking up Saturday morning and getting rental cars to drive down to College Station, about a three-hour trip.
However, the bag situation was just starting. The team wasn’t able to collect its 23 bags on Friday night. Birch said airline employees said they would get the bags on a flight to College Station so they would arrive when the team got there.
Later Saturday, Birch got a call that her team’s 23 bags were in Houston, not College Station. Then, they got put back on a flight to Dallas. Then, the bags missed multiple flights that were bound for College Station.
All of this happening because Birch said that airline employees were telling her that she could not collect her team’s…
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