LARAMIE – Cowgirl golf will play in the postseason for the first time in program history.
Wyoming, coming off a
fourth-place finish in the Mountain West Championships, has accepted a bid to the Women's National Golf Invitational (NGI) May 15-17 at the Ak-Chin Southern Dunes Golf Club in Maricopa, Ariz.
UW joins a 10-team field which also includes Bowling Green State, Bradley, Coastal Carolina, Denver, Lipscomb, Mercer, Missouri State, Rutgers and Stetson.
"I'm just so very proud of this group and the program as a whole. This was a goal of ours at the beginning of the season to play in the postseason," UW head coach
Josey Stender said. "(Assistant) Coach Blake (Isakson) and I knew we had the pieces to accomplish it."
Earlier this season, UW hosted the Cowgirl Classic on the par-72, 6,196-yard AK Chin Southern Dunes GC.
Kiley Reisner finished tied for fourth individually and set a new program record for lowest event score after finishing the 54-hole tournament with a 207 (-9).
"The familiarity with the course is going to be huge for us," Stender said. "It will be a little different set up, and I'm sure the course has firmed up with the heat, so it may play different."
Reisner finished second at the MW Championships in Rancho Mirage, Calif., to lead the Cowgirls to their best finish in the conference tournament. Champion Leia Chung (-5) of Boise State and Reisner (-3) were the only players to finish under par.
Only UW's two MW individual champions, Jordan Lintz (2000) and Jonelle Martinez (2009), have finished higher in the event than Reisner.
Reisner is currently playing in the
USGA Women's Amateur Four-Ball Championship in Charleston, S.C.
The UW freshman standout and her partner, Summer Schafer, a freshman at Point Loma, finished second through two rounds of stroke play with a two-round score of 135 (-9) on the par-72, 6,457-yard Daniel Island Club course. The duo advanced out of the 64-side stroke play field to the matchplay round of 32 on Monday.
It was a spectacular spring for Reisner, who also won two events (Thunderbird Classic and Bobcat Desert Classic) and narrowly missed out on qualifying for the NCAA Regionals in her first season of collegiate golf.
Reisner was the MW freshman of the month for September and the first Cowgirl to earn MW player of the week in 26 years. She was also the conference's freshman of the week award winner twice this season.
Playing in the NGI will allow
Meghan Vogt to finish her stellar UW career in the postseason. The senior carded back-to-back rounds of 73 to finish +6 (tied for 14
th) at the MW Championships.
Vogt tied the program record for lowest round (67) in October after teammate
Elle Higgins set the mark in September.
Higgins (+7), a junior, finished tied for 17
th at the conference tournament and sophomore
Kira Reisner (+11), Kiley's older sister, finished tied for 28
th to help the Cowgirls move past fifth-place Nevada and out-pace sixth-place Colorado State by six strokes.
UW's lineup for the NGI will include both Reisner sisters, Vogt, Higgins and sophomore
Emerson Purcell. Freshman
Ellie Barry will also be making the trip as an alternate.
The NGI has been a springboard for individuals and teams to make the jump to the NCAAs. Last year's champion, Santa Clara, had Kelsey Kim qualify as an individual for this year's NCAA Stanford Regional, and runner-up Eastern Michigan qualified as the No. 5 seed at the NCAA Tallahassee Regional.
"When you chip away at all the little things and then you get an invite like this, it really validates what your process has been," Stender said. "I think our girls genuinely believe in each other and themselves and that's a dangerous combination."
