CARLSBAD, Calif. — Megha Ganne won her final three holes and top-seeded Stanford held on to beat Southern California on Tuesday, advancing to the title match against UCLA in a Pac-12 final for the women's golf championship of the NCAA.
UCLA got big performances from Carolina Canales, Meghan Royal and Natalie Vo, who won matches in the quarterfinals and semifinals on a long, difficult day at La Costa.
Stanford will be seeking its second NCAA title in the last three years, and the third time since the NCAA switched to single-game play for the team title in 2015.
Sadie Englemann needed 19 holes to beat former Augusta women's amateur champion Anna Davis as the Cardinal beat Auburn in the quarterfinals Tuesday morning. She then built a 5-up lead in the turn for a 7 and 5 victory over Cindy Kou in the semifinals, as Stanford atoned for losing to USC in last year's semifinals.
Englemann finished the match with a 35-foot putt that she said summed up her day.
“Everything went my way,” he said. “I made a lot of birdies, which is nice to see. And I gained a little confidence this morning, beating one of the best players in the country.”
But the rest of the way was difficult for the Cardinal. Amari Avery held off Stanford's Rachel Heck through 17 holes, and the final three matches could have gone either way.
Stanford coach Anne Walker noticed her team missing putts early on “and I was curious if that was going to last. And it didn't.”
“You don't win a championship without playing great golf for three days,” he said.
Ganne was 1 behind Brianna Navarrosa when she birdied the 15th, won the par-3 16th with a par and closed out her 2 and 1 victory with a birdie at the 17. Stanford's Kelly Xu was 1 up when Catherine Park made bogey on the 15th and left a bunker shot in the sand to make bogey on the 16th. Xu made a 10-foot par putt on the 16th to close it out.
UCLA has three NCAA titles in women's golf, all in medal play and the last coming in 2011. The Bruins defeated Texas A&M in the quarterfinals and then quickly built a 3-0 lead against Oregon.
Canales was the match leader and won the first four holes against Karen Tsuru of Oregon, needing only 13 holes to win the match. Right behind her was Royal, who never trailed Ching-Tzu Chen and closed it out with a 40-foot birdie putt.
Vo built a 3-point lead on the turn against Minori Nagano and won, 2 and 1. That sent the Bruins, who defeated Texas A&M in the quarterfinals, to the championship game on Wednesday.
