The Southern Miss women’s golf team will be heading to the Norman Region in the program’s first-ever NCAA tournament appearance.
The Golden Eagles earned the auto berth by winning the Sun Belt Conference championship last week, with senior Momoka Ando also winning the conference’s individual title.
The three-day event will be played from May 5-7 at Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club. The trip to Norman is a homecoming for first-year coach Colton Cowan, who not only grew up about 45 minutes from Norman but has played the course multiple times, even as most recently this past December.
“It’s a golf course we played quite a bit growing up,” Cowan said. “It’s a golf course that I truly like.
“I have a good idea of using our strengths from a player’s perspective to get the best opportunity to attack the way that we need to for the event."
Southern Miss will be the No. 12 seed in the regional. The field includes Stanford, Northwestern, North Carolina, Michigan State, Duke, Oklahoma, Baylor, Oregon State, Tulsa, Denver and Furman.
“I’m so impressed with our team,” Junior Taylor Trible said. “We have come a long way since the beginning of the year. I’m so excited for our team to get to experience a regional.
“It’s been a big adjustment changing coaches. I feel like the last two semesters we’ve learned what we need to do as a team, and how to bond together more as a team such as putting, short game and getting our speed dialed in.”
Each regional site will have 12 teams, and six individual players (not on one of the selected teams) will compete over three days for a chance to advance to the championships
“I think we can (surprise people),” Senior Elena Melich said. “I think we have the skills. We have the preparation. We just have to keep doing what we are doing, and keep fighting until the end.
“It’s exciting. It’s good to see our names in the same poll as (Stanford). I feel like we are ready to take on the challenge and play our best golf. We’ll see what happens after 54 holes.”
The national championships will be played from May 16-21 at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
Follow @AndrewAbadie on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook for Southern Miss coverage.
