Neisen & Cowgirls Set for Shoal Creek Regional; Burnham & Spartans Will Be at Stanford

Assignments for the four Women's NCAA Regional tournaments were announced Monday.

All four regionals will be contested May 5-7, and there will be 18 teams in each. There will also be six individuals whose teams didn't get invited to the party at each regional.

Six teams and three individuals from each will then advance to the NCAA Championships, May 20-25 at Eugene Country Club in Eugene, Ore. 

Even though there are 72 teams moving on to the post-season, Minnesota, which is No. 63 in the Golfweek Women's Division I Rankings, won't be one of them. The Gophers finished 11th in the Big Ten Championships over the weekend, and that may have sealed their fate. It dropped them eight places in the rankings, from No. 55 last week. 

A couple of Minnesotans will be competing in the regionals, however, along with at least one player with Minnesota connections. And a former Minnesotan, Kalen Anderson, who played on four state high school championship teams at Edina during the 1990's, will also be involved as the coach of South Carolina, the No. 22 team in the country. South Carolina is the No. 6 seed at the Baton Rouge Regional in Louisiana. 

The two Minnesotans are both former state high school champions. As a matter of fact, Kenzie Neisen of New Prague and Sarah Burnham of Wayzata tied for Class AAA medalist honors in 2013 with a record 36-hole score of 140 at Bunker Hills GC. 

Neisen, who then broke that record with a 135 total in 2014 while winning the AAA crown again, is now a sophomore at Oklahoma State. She won the Big 12 Conference individual championship for the second time in as many tries on Sunday, thanks to a final round of 6-under-par 66 at The Dominion Country Club in San Antonio, Texas. Neisen and her Oklahoma State teamates will be at the Shoal Creek Regional in Alabama.

Burnham, a sophomore at Michigan State, has won twice during the 2015-16 college season, and she tied for seventh in the Big Ten tournament on Sunday at the Fort Golf Resort in Indianapolis. She and the Spartans will be heading West for the Stanford Regional in Palo Alto, Calif.  

Also playing at Palo Alto will be Casey Danielson, a four-time Wisconsin state high school champ from Osceola who has played in several USGA qualifying tournaments in the Twin Cities. She is a junior at Stanford, the defending NCAA champion, and the Cardinal will be the host team for the Stanford Regional at Stanford GC. 


NCAA Baton Rouge Regional

At University Club

Baton Rouge, La.  

NCAA Bryan Regional

At Traditions Club

Bryan, Texas 

1. UCLA
2. Georgia
3. Arizona
4. Kent State
5. Furman
6. Texas A&M
7. TCU
8. Texas
9. SMU
10. Louisville
11. Miami
12. Tulane
13. Campbell
14. Indiana
15. Texas State
16. Delaware
17. Lamar
18. Quinnipiac

Individuals

1. Laura Lonardi, Baylor
2. Alessandra Liu, Williams and Mary
3. Bianca Pagdanganan, Gonzaga
4. Hannah Wood, Oklahoma
5. Brooke Ferrell, Wisconsin
6. Amy Ihm, Iowa

1. USC
2. Arkansas
3. Stanford
4. Virginia
5. UNLV
6. San Diego State
7. Texas Tech
8. Ohio State
9. Colorado
10. Wake Forest
11. Michigan State
12. North Carolina
13. Pepperdine
14. San Jose State
15. UC Riverside
16. Idaho
17. Richmond
18. Seton Hall

Individuals

1. Kassidy Teare, Long Beach State
2. Martina Edberg, Cal State-Fullerton
3. Andrea Wong, UC Davis
4. Katrina Prendergast, Colorado State
5. Paige Lee, UC Davis
6. Kristin Simonsen, Fresno State