Hoosiers advance to NCAA Championship

Golf is supposed to be an individual sport, but sometimes a team effort is needed to achieve victory. \nFreshman Anita Gahir started the final day of the NCAA Central Regional tournament in fourth place, but fell to 21st after shooting a disappointing 84 in the final round. Enter junior and team leader Elaine Harris, who took it upon herself to make sure the Hoosiers would still advance to the NCAA Championships. Harris came out of the final round with a score of 69, having made birdies on four of the final six holes.\nWith this result, her score was the top one in Saturday’s tournament play, and it improved her overall finish from 17th to seventh place.\n“I feel really good about how I played,” Harris said. “I could tell Anita wasn’t playing her best and I knew I had to end well (because of that).” \nIU played solid as a team, placing fourth, which marked its best showing ever in an NCAA regional tournament for women’s golf.\nIU Head Coach Clint Wallman said the Hoosiers used everything they had learned during the season to achieve the result they did. \n“The girls did a fantastic job and did what got them through the year,” Wallman said.\nAlso competing for the Hoosiers was junior Lauren Harling, who rebounded from early disappointments to improve 37 positions on the final day, finishing 21st. \n“Things weren’t going my way the first two days, and today I was really determined and did all the right things,” Harling said. \nRounding out the field for the Hoosiers were freshmen Kellye Belcher and Laura Nochta, who placed 24th and 46th, respectively. For Nochta, however, her performance was in stark contrast to the one she gave in the Wolverine Invitational earlier in the season. During this match, held on the same golf course, she led IU to a fourth-place finish by finishing a season-best seventh. \nThe top eight teams now advance to the NCAA Championship. Tournament winner Southern California will continue, as will Georgia, Texas Christian University, IU, Arizona, Vanderbilt, Tennessee and Big Ten rival Michigan State.\nWinning the tournament individually with a five-under-par was Vanderbilt’s Jacqui Concolino, who beat out Southern California’s Paola Moreno by four strokes. \nThe championships will begin on Tuesday, May 22, and run through Friday, May 25, with live stats available on golfstat.com. \nWallman thinks winning the national championship is a possibility. \n“We treated regionals as its own season and now the finals (will be treated) as its own season,” Wallman said. “Anything is possible, as we have as good a chance as any team and we wanted to compete for a national championship and now we can.”