The Oregon Ducks’ women’s golf team saw their magical run come to an end on Tuesday afternoon in the semifinals of the NCAA Championships, falling 3-2 to the UCLA Bruins in the match-play portion of the championship.
The No. 7 seed Ducks started the day with a quarterfinal matchup with No. 2 seed LSU, winning match play 3-2 over the Tigers after freshman phenom Kiara Romero closed things out with a win on the final hole. Senior Ching-Tzu Chen also won her match one-up, while senior Minori Nagano dominated, winning 7-and-6 to put a point on the board.
However, things didn’t go as well in the afternoon against the Bruins, with the Ducks falling behind early and struggling to get back into things.
Oregon freshman Karen Tsuru lost her matchup with UCLA’s Caroline Canales, and Chen fell to UCLA’s Meghan Royal. Nagano pushed her match to the 17th hole to keep things alive, but ultimately ended up falling to Natalie Vo, sealing the win for UCLA.
Despite the ultimate loss, the day was a positive for the Ducks, who were not projected to upset LSU earlier in the day. It was just the third time in program history that Oregon made it to the match play stage of the NCAA Championships, and the second time that they made it to the semifinals in the last three years.
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