UCLA Women's Golf Loses to Washington in NCAA Semifinals

The UCLA Women's Golf team's quest for UCLA's 114th National Championship ended yesterday in the semifinals of the NCAA Women's Golf Championships when the team lost to fourth-seeded Washington, 3-1-1.

Earlier in the day, the Bruins defeated Oregon, 4-0-1, to advance to the semifinals.

Match play scoring is different than stroke play scoring. With match play scoring, golfers go head-to-head and the winner is the one who wins more holes, rather than the one who has the fewest strokes.

Against Washington, UCLA's only win came from junior Bronte Law. Law defeated Charlotte Thomas by winning the 17th hole. Law won the 17th hole and that put her up 2 holes with one left to play. As a result, she won her match by the score of "2 and 1".

Freshman Bethany Wu lost her match to Juliann Alvarez. The match was "all square", or tied, after the 15th hole, but Alvarez won the 16th hole 3 strokes to 2, giving her a 1 hole lead and Wu was unable to win either the 17th or 18th holes to bring the match back to all square. As a result, Alvarez won "1 Up".

Junior Hadas Libman lost to Wenyung Keh on the 17th hole which allowed Keh to win by a score of 2 and 1.

Senior Louise Ridderström and Sarah Rhee were all square after 18 holes, forcing an extra hole. When Rhee won the extra hole, that gave Washington 3 victories and play was stopped even though freshman Lilia Vu's match against Ying Lao was all square at the time as it no longer mattered in determining the outcome of the overall match.

While the team wasn't able to win this year's title, they did win the stroke play portion and will only lose senior Louise Ridderström. So, next year's team will certainly be poised to make another run for the title.

Go Bruins.