UCLA
SDSU March Mayhem at The Farms
Bruins Fall in Tiebreak to Arizona
March 22, 2016 | Women's Golf
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RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. - The third-ranked Bruins made a dramatic comeback to tie #11 Arizona in the semifinals of the SDSU March Mayhem at The Farms on Tuesday, but fell in a tiebreaker. UCLA will take on #9 Stanford in the third-place match on Wednesday starting at 8:45 a.m.
The Bruins found themselves down in the overall score, 2-1, but outstanding birdies by freshman Lilia Vu and senior Louise Ridderström on the 18th hole forced the two teams to a tiebreaker. However, Arizona had a bigger margin of victory than UCLA in its two wins to advance to the championship match. The Wildcats' wins (3 and 2, 3 and 1) earned them six points in the tiebreaker, while the Bruins' triumphs (2 and 1, 1-up) gave them just three points.
Before the Bruins and the Wildcats got to that stage, Vu came back from 2-down with two holes to go to tie Gigi Stoll. Vu won the second and third holes before Stoll came back with victories on #6 and #7. A birdie on the ninth for Vu put the Bruin back up, but birdies for Stoll on the 12th, 14th and 16th put her dormie. Vu parred the 17th, with a Stoll bogey, to get her to within one, and then birdied the par-5 18th to earn a precious half point and make the overall score 2 1/2-1 1/2.
Then it was Ridderström's turn for the dramatic versus Lindsey Weaver. The senior was down the entire match, dropping the third, fifth and sixth holes. Ridderström got one back on the ninth, but again fell 3-down at the 11th. Back-to-back victories for Ridderström on the 12th and 13th got her to within 1-up, and then she got all-square with a par on the 16th. After each player bogeyed the 17th, Ridderström needed to win the 18th to force a tie in the overall score, and she did just that with a birdie to make the score of the match 2 1/2-2 1/2.
Freshman Bethany Wu earned the first full point for the Bruins against Jessica Vasilic. Wu dropped the first hole, but came back with three straight wins on the second, third and fourth. The Bruin freshman lost the seventh, but again rebounded at the eighth, ninth and 10th to go 4-up. The see-saw battle continued, with Vasilic taking holes #11, #12 and #13, but Wu would remain in front, winning the 16th, halving the 17th and claiming the match, 2 and 1.
Juniors Hadas Libman (3 and 2) and Bronte Law (3 and 1) fell to Haley Moore and Krystal Quihuis, respectively. Libman won four holes, the fourth, sixth, 13th and 15th, but was unable to grab a lead in the match, dropping seven holes (#3, #5, #7, #8, #10, #12 and #14). Law was 4-up early after five holes with wins on the first, third, fourth and fifth. However, Quihuis birdied the next three and won four straight to make the match all-square at the turn. The Wildcat then won the 13th and 14th, and after a Law victory at #15, Quihuis claimed holes #16 and #17 to defeat the Bruin junior.
