Making its fourth appearance in match play at the NCAA Championships, Oregon improved to 7-2 all-time with its two victories today.
“Wow, it's an incredible feeling to be back here and to do it last year at the home course was amazing, at our home course,” said Oregon head coach Casey Martin. “But then to do it here in Chicago and trying to back it up, it's hard to put into words, and I'm proud of the guys and how they've played all year, and then in particular how they battled to get here because we were way on the outs, and here we are. So it's pretty cool.”
Norman Xiong opened the afternoon match against Vanderbilt with a 3 & 2 victory for the Ducks. After Theo Humphrey recorded a 5 & 4 win in the fourth pairing to give the Commodores a point, Wyndham Clark scored a 4 & 3 victory to get Oregon within a point of the final. John Augenstein pulled Vanderbilt back level with a 19-holes win as the match came down to the final pairing of the day between Sulman Raza and Matthias Schwab. Leading by one heading to the 18th, Raza posted a birdie to win the match 2-up and advance Oregon to the final.
In the morning quarterfinals, Oregon and Oklahoma State split the first four points in their match. Viktor Hovland won 2 & 1 for the Cowboys in the opening match. Zachary Olsen won the second point for Oklahoma State, 3 & 1, while Oregon posted points via Edwin Yi’s 1-up victory in the second pairing and Ryan Gronlund’s 2 & 1 win in the fourth twosome of the match. With the match tied, Raza completed a 2 & 1 victory in the last quarterfinal pairing to move the Dukes into the afternoon semifinals.
Oklahoma’s path to the final went through the crowd favorite Illinois in the afternoon semifinals. In the first pairing out, Blaine Hale put the Sooners in front with a 4 & 3 victory. Oklahoma was within a point of the final when Max McGreevy won the 17th hole in his pairing to claim a 2 & 1 win. The Sooners completed their semifinal triumph when Rylee Reinertson won the third pairing, 3 & 1, as he clinched with a win on the 17th.
“Well, obviously we're really excited about what's going on,” said Oklahoma head coach Ryan Hybl. “It's been a great week for us. We've been playing good golf all week long, and our guys did something really special this morning, whenever we were playing against Baylor. We fought hard and got back into all the matches and ended up getting three points, one closing it out on the 19th hole, which was really special.”
In the opening match of the day, Oklahoma trailed Baylor in all five matches early in the round before coming back to win, 3-2. The Bears won the first two points as Cooper Dossey was a 1-up winner in the opening pairing and Braden Bailey won 2 & 1 in the second. The Sooner stormed back in the final three pairings to take the match. Reinertson was a 1-up winner, Grant Hirschman trailed by as many as three before coming back to take his match, 1-up, with an eagle on the 18th. In the final pairing, Baylor’s Matthew Perrine forced a 19th hole after chipping in for birdie on 18, but Brad Dalke won the match for Oklahoma with a par on the 19th.
The Sooners are making their second all-time appearance in the NCAA Championships match play, they fell to Texas last year in the quarterfinals.
“We're excited about tomorrow, the challenges, and trying to soak all this up at the same time, and hopefully we're going to go play some good golf tomorrow,” said Hybl.
In the other two morning quarterfinals, Illinois was a 3-1-1 winner over Southern California while Vanderbilt rallied for a 3-2 win over UNLV.
Live coverage on Golf Channel of Wednesday’s final will begin with Golf Central Pre Game beginning at 12:30 p.m., followed by live coverage of the championship match at 3 p.m. CT.
Team Match Play, Semifinal Match Results:
- Oregon defeated Vanderbilt 3-2
- Oklahoma defeated Illinois 3-1-1
Team Match Play, Quarterfinal Match Results:
- No. 1 Vanderbilt def. No. 8 UNLV, 3-2
- No. 2 Oklahoma def. No. 7 Baylor, 3-2
- No. 3 Illinois def. No. 6 Southern California, 3-1-1
- No. 5 Oregon def. No. 4 Oklahoma State, 3-2
Championship Match, May 31:
- Oregon vs. Oklahoma, 2:10 p.m. CT
Golf Channel Wednesday / NCAA Team Championship Schedule (all times CT)
- Golf Central Pre Game - 12:30-3 p.m. CT
- Championship Match - 3-7 p.m. CT
- Golf Central - 7-8 p.m. CT
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