Baylor Women's Golf Ready for Return to the NCAA Championship

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Baylor women’s golf makes its sixth trip to the NCAA Championship in the last seven season beginning Friday morning when the Bears tee it up at the Omni La Costa Golf Club in Carlsbad, Calif.

One of nine teams to make four-straight trips to the NCAA Championship and one of eight to make six of the last seven, Baylor is no stranger to ending the season on the sport’s biggest stage. Ranked well outside the projected field in late February, the Bears closed with a fury, compiling a 45-13 head-to-head record in the last five events of the season to reach this point. While the road map might have looked different this year, head coach Jay Goble feels like his team is in the right place at the right time.

“This is probably the first season I've been at Baylor that I doubted that we were going to make postseason,” he said. “It was looking pretty grim for a long time because we couldn't get over the hump of having more than one person play well at once. When we started to do that and got Ashleen [Kaur] playing some consistent golf along with Sera [Hasegawa] and Rosie [Belsham] you saw us rise. In the last two months, I've seen the team that I've expected to see all year. So, it was really cool to see them all start to play better at the same time. We're playing as good as we've played, and we're playing as a top-10 team in the country right now.”

Hasegawa will play in the anchor spot on the heels of a tie for fourth at the Las Vegas Regional. The junior has two top-10 finishes in her two regional appearances and will look to improve on a tie for 47th in her NCAA Championship debut a season ago.

Kaur teamed up with Hasegawa to finish tied for fourth in Vegas and will play at No. 2 this week in Carlsbad. The tie for fourth was the best finish by a Baylor freshman in a postseason debut since Dylan Kim finished third at the San Antonio Regional in 2015.

BaiMai Seema enters the NCAA Championship fresh off the best performance of her career, a tie for 20th in Vegas. The junior enters with three rounds under her belt at the championship, highlighted by an even-par 72 in the second round of the event last season at Grayhawk.

Belsham will be the only player in program history with four NCAA Championship appearances when she tees it up on Friday. The senior has been in the lineup for every team event in her collegiate career and looks forward to making one more run at the ultimate goal this weekend.

“It's going to be really nice to get there and just have golf to think about,” she said. “There's nothing else on my mind other than just have some fun and play some golf. In my opinion, this is going to be one of the best nationals we've had. We've not had the best success, but I think a new location and a younger team, I certainly feel a lot freer going into it this year, so I think it's going to be great.”

Silje Ohma will play at No. 5, making her second NCAA Championship appearance after a tie for 65th last season. The sophomore shot a 1-under 71 in her career-first NCAA Championship round last season at Grayhawk.

Yoonjeong Huh will serve as the alternate in her career-first NCAA Championship. The freshman has appeared in eight tournaments this season, highlighted by an eighth-place finish at the Rainbow Wahine Invitational in October.

The Bears will tee off beginning with Ohma at 9:57 a.m. CT on Friday morning, playing alongside Michigan State and Purdue.