Women's Golf to Tee Off at NCAA Columbus Regional Monday
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — After claiming its Mountain West-record ninth title this season, The University of New Mexico women’s golf team is set to take on its 17th NCAA regional competition in program history on Monday, May 10 – Wednesday, May 12. The Lobos enter the tournament as the 12th seed.
UNM will take on a stacked field at the NCAA Columbus Regional hosted by Ohio State at the 6,335-yard, par-72 OSU Golf Club – Scarlet Course.
The field will include No. 1-seed Duke, ranked second in the nation by Golfstat, which claimed the Atlantic Coast Conference title and finished second in the nation in 2019. The remainder of the field includes No. 7 Arizona State, No. 11 Virginia, No. 15 Kent State, No. 18 Georgia, No. 24 Vanderbilt, No. 26 Michigan, No. 30 Clemson, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Illinois, Nebraska, Washington, Coastal Carolina, Campbell, Youngstown State and Evansville. The Lobos are currently ranked No. 46.
Seven of the teams in the field earned their conference’s automatic bid to regionals while the remaining squads are at-large bids.
The Lobos are set to feature the same lineup that won them the Mountain West Championship: sophomore Lauren Lehigh, sophomore Napat “Jenny” Lertsadwattana, Mountain West Freshman of the Year Myah McDonald and seniors Serena Chon and Caroline Jansson. In addition, sophomore Chloé Lauer will serve as the team alternate.
Under 2021 Mountain West Coach of the Year Jill Trujillo, McDonald became the second straight Lobo MW Freshman of the Year after Lertsadwattana claimed the honor in 2019. This season, in addition to UNM earning two of the top three conference honors, Lertsadwattana and Lehigh were named to the All-Mountain West Second Team for their outstanding performance on the season.
Lertsadwattana leads the Lobos on the season with a scoring average of 73.90 strokes per round with a team-low, single-round of 70. She has led the Lobos four times this season and has posted four top-10 finishes so far this season.
Lehigh has led UNM in two of its last three tournaments including a tie for first place at the 2021 MW Championships. Lehigh ultimately fell in a playoff. She averages 74.72 strokes per round.
McDonald was the top Lobo scorer at the 2021 Branch Law Firm/Dick McGuire Invitational where she registered UNM’s only three-round score under par this season (-1). She is averaging 75.33 strokes per round on the season but over the last two tournaments is boasting a 72.50 stroke average. She has finished the last two tournaments in the top 10 of the field.
All three days of competition will start with tee times ranging from 8 a.m. – 10:48 a.m. ET (6 a.m. – 8:48 a.m. MT).