BRADENTON, Fla. -- The Arkansas women's golf team came up a couple shots short of some major accomplishments Monday.
The Razorbacks finished ninth as a team, one spot and three shots short of qualifying for the eight-team match play portion of the rain-plagued NCAA championships at The Concession Golf Club.
Arkansas junior Gaby Lopez came even closer to winning the Razorbacks' second invididual NCAA title.
Lopez fired a tournament-best 6-under 66 on Monday and ended up one shot behind Alabama junior Emma Talley for medalist honors. Lopez completed four rounds at 2-under 286, tying with Duke freshman Leona Maguire. Lopez, Maguire and Talley were the only players at the championships to shoot under par.
Stacey Lewis won the 2007 NCAA title as a sophomore at Arkansas.
The Razorbacks, as a team, improved each round at the tournament, which was impacted by thunderstorms and lightning each day. Arkansas shot 10-over par on Monday and 65 over for the tournament, which was three strokes behind Washington (62-over) for the eighth spot. The first match-play finish for the NCAA women starts today with defending NCAA champion and No. 1 Southern California (40-over) the No. 1 seed in a Pac-12 dominated field.
The Trojans are followed by Duke (45 over), Baylor (46 over), Stanford (47 over), Arizona (53 over), Tennessee (60 over), Texas Tech (60 over) and Washington.
Arkansas turned in the day's fifth-best score but it was not enough to overcome Washington, which started the round with a five-stroke advantage on the Razorbacks.
Arkansas freshman Alana Uriell (21 over) tied for 48th, junior Reginia Plasencia (23 over) tied for 51st, sophomore Samanta Marks (31 over) tied for 73rd and sophomore Summar Roachell (32 over) tied for 76th.
Alabama's Talley, the 2013 U.S. Women's Amateur champion, proved unflappable during a bogey-free final round of 1-over-par 73. Talley's patience was tested on her finishing hole, the par-four No. 9, as officials blew the horn for a weather delay at 4:43 p.m. It came just before she could complete her final shot of the day, a possible birdie putt, and Talley rolled with the delay even if she couldn't roll her putt.
"I just knew everybody else was upset so I just tried to get off the green as quick as possible," she said. "I didn't want to hear a bunch of negativity. So I just wanted to keep a positive spirit. I knew I had to finish it."
Talley spent the 52-minute delay in the Concession clubhouse, mostly avoiding The Golf Channel's live coverage.
"Sat there," she said. "I tried to keep my composure and I didn't watch the TV very often, tried not to watch that. I did find out what the scores are. I knew I had to make that putt."
That putt actually capped a gutsy series of shots on No. 9. Already 2-under with the lead, Talley wanted an exclamation point. Per Alabama Coach Mic Potter, she had missed birdie opportunities on Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 8, accepting pars on five consecutive holes before teeing off on No. 9.
Once she did, she found the fairway bunker rather than the fairway.
"She just felt like she wanted to get a cushion," Potter said. "Obviously everybody wants to birdie this hole, but she really wanted to birdie this hole, and drove it a little left. She usually cuts the ball off the tee a little bit, but for some reason she keeps it left here. We saw it bounce, didn't know if it got in the bunker.
"So I'm imagining her standing in the bunker with the ball out, or it up against the lip or something. It ended up right in the bottom of it, perfectly flat lie, good yardage. The only question was choosing the right club."
"I had 148 [yards to the green] and I hit 7-iron," Talley said. "Had a little wind against us. Had a little adrenaline rush, too. I was going to club-up but decided not to at the very last second."
The result was picturesque -- a landing five-to-six feet from the hole.
"Just perfect," Potter said. "I told her I'm really glad I didn't have to hit that shot."
He sort of had during this past Thursday's practice round, when Talley had inquired about his philosophy of fairway bunker play and Potter explained.
"Ball back in the stance a little bit," he recalled.
Luckily so for Talley, who twice applied the advice on Monday, once on the epic shot at No. 9 and earlier at No. 15 on her front nine.
"So, kudos to Mic," Talley said.
Potter refused any credit.
"She likes confirmation," he said. "She doesn't make many mistakes or do many things wrong. I can't recall seeing her practicing a fairway bunker shot. Now she practices a lot so I may have missed it. She works on her golf swing in the right way and that applies to that shot. If you're a good ball striker, you're a good ball striker."
Talley didn't have the opportunity to drain her final birdie putt until after the 52-minute weather delay. Even then, her entourage singled out the set-up shot from the No. 9 fairway bunker as the play of the day.
"This one, I told her, may be one of the best shots -- I've coached for 33 years -- at a critical time that I've ever seen," Potter said.
Sports on 05/26/2015