Wildcats nab No. 1 seed in NCAA Championships match play

Northwestern will be the No. 1 match play seed at the 2017 NCAA Women's Golf Championships and will face No. 8 Kent State on Tuesday, after wrapping up a dominant three days of stroke play on Monday at Rich Harvest Farms. Junior Hannah Kim led the way in round three for the 'Cats, who placed all five student-athletes in the Top-30 of the individual leaderboard.

This marks the first trip to the match play portion of the competition - now in its third year - for head coach Emily Fletcher, assistant Beth Miller and Northwestern, which is now guaranteed of its best NCAA Championships result in program history for the fifth-straight year. The 'Cats earned 15th-place results in 2013 and 2014, a 10th-place finish in 2015 and then a ninth-place standing last spring.

Northwestern posted the best score in the 24-team field on Friday, and did so again on Sunday after weather wiped out Saturday's action. By the end of 54 holes, the Wildcats built an 8-stroke gap over second-place Stanford, and finished 22 strokes above the cut line for entry into match play.

The 'Cats will tee off against Kent State at 7:50 a.m. Tuesday at Rich Harvest Farms. The four quarterfinal winners will advance to semifinal matches in the afternoon, with those two winners moving on to Wednesday's final.