Northwestern breaks through at NCAA Women's Championship
No matter how Northwestern's weather-delayed semifinal match with Southern California turns out Wednesday, the Wildcats will have endured a Cinderella run in the NCAA Women's Golf Championship at Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove.
Coach Emily Fletcher's Wildcats won the stroke-play portion of the event Tuesday and took their quarterfinal match against Kent State in dramatic fashion Tuesday morning.
Then bad weather, which has plagued this tournament being played in the Chicago area for the first time in 33 years, struck again. Lightning detected in the area followed by more heavy rain led to a two-hour, 20-minute delay in play with NU trailing in four of five matches against Southern California.
The match resumed at 6:50 p.m. with all five matches still on the front nine. The resumption in play found the Wildcats still trailing in four of five matches when it was stopped for the day at 8:03 p.m. They'll need a big comeback Wednesday morning to make it into the title match. Semifinal play is to resume at 9 a.m. The title match is scheduled for 3 p.m.
Still, this season represents another breakthrough since Fletcher took over the NU program. She has taken her team to the NCAA finals five straight years. Last year the Wildcats finished ninth in the stroke-play portion of the tournament and missed a berth in match play by one spot.
This year the Wildcats weren't as solid in the regular season. They were dethroned by Michigan State in the Big Ten tournament and didn't win their NCAA regional either, finishing second to Alabama.
The bridesmaid stigma changed once the NCAA finals teed off at Rich Harvest on Friday. The Wildcats led all three rounds in stroke play.
"I'm really proud of our kids," Fletcher said. "I felt we had the best one-through-five team in the country, but we were consistently inconsistent all year. Finally we've got everybody firing on all cylinders this week."
Practicing frequently in bad weather paid off in the year's biggest tournament.
"The week before coming here we practiced in bad conditions," said Hanna Kim, one of NU's stars. "At times we hated it, but it made our team better."
Pat Fitzgerald, the NU football coach, and men's basketball boss Chris Collins gave the golfers pep talks, and Fletcher showed them a video of NU alum Luke Donald, a former NCAA individual champion and world No. 1 as a professional.
All of that helped. A team with only one senior, Kacie Komoto, still can win a national championship Wednesday. But it will require more spectacular play.
Winning the stroke play was a major accomplishment in itself. NU led throughout the 54 holes, one round being canceled because of the horrible weather.
"That was really special, because we missed by a couple shots last year," Kim said. "Making it this time was a big step for our program."
The morning win over Kent State also was a big one, as Northwestern had never reached the match-play portion of the tournament - now three years in its current format - much less advanced through the quarterfinals.
Komoto was the key in that win. Sarah Cho and Kim already had won their matches, but NU needed 1 more win to advance. Komoto delivered it with a 2-up victory.
"I didn't know the scores but felt it was close," Komoto said. "I wanted to keep my head down and make sure I got a point for our team."
She did, and that was fortunate since NU lost the final two matches on the board. The 3-2 win over Kent State put NU against USC, which eliminated Ohio State 3-1-1 in the quarterfinals. Stanford reached the semifinals with a 3-2 win over Baylor, and Arizona State got there by blanking Florida 5-0.
Stanford, bidding for a third straight year in the title match, held a 2-1 lead over Arizona State when darkness halted play.
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