After placing third out of 12 in the Charlottesville Regional two weeks ago, Virginia, competing this week in its fourth consecutive NCAA Championships, found itself in 10th place after the first three rounds, good enough to make the initial 15-team cut. That put the Cavaliers right on the doorstep of advancing to their first NCAA Championship match play since 2016.
However, in the fourth round Monday, needing to squeeze into the top eight to make match play, they started slipping behind. Then they recovered and, due to their earlier tee time, had to watch from around the ninth green as their season came down to whether No. 8 Arizona State could maintain a slim lead.
Standing a little away from the competition, with her team’s season in the balance, Coach Ria Scott took a moment for an interview with the Golf Channel.
“Anything can happen, and so we’re just preparing ourselves for what that might be,” Scott said.
The best-case scenario happened for Virginia. The Sun Devils slipped, allowing the Cavaliers to take a one-stroke lead and narrowly squeeze into match play. Virginia shot 15-over across the four rounds. Arizona State finished at 16-over.
“Even when we made the turn not doing so well, we knew it still wasn’t over,” Scott said.
The eighth-place finish matched Virginia up Tuesday with top finisher Stanford, which shot an astounding 27-under par in stroke play — the next closest team was Oregon at six-under.
The Cavaliers lost the matchup 3.5-1.5. Despite Virginia maintaining a 3-2 lead for much of the middle holes, the Cardinal came back to ultimately win the day and end Virginia’s season. Senior Megan Propeck, freshman Kennedy Swedick and graduate student Rebecaa Skoler all lost their matchups. Senior Amanda Sambach, competing along with Skoler in her fourth straight NCAA Championships, managed a tie. Sophomore Jaclyn LaHa was the only Cavalier to win her match.
Propeck was fantastic all week. She never went over par at any point during stroke play, beginning with an even-par 72 and then an incredible three-under 69. She repeated those scores in that order in her last two rounds, for a score of six-under par for the tournament. That was good enough to tie for the fifth-best in the entire tournament and to give her the second-best individual finish in program history, after Propeck finished outside the top 100 in both her previous NCAA Championships appearances.
Sambach, her fellow senior, also performed well. She tied for 30th overall and was relatively consistent throughout. Beginning with an even-par 72 and a two-over 74, she maintained her solid play in the final two rounds, ending with another even-par and then a one-over 73. Sambach was three-over par for the tournament, and her birdie on the eighth hole in the final round put Virginia into position to take the lead from the Sun Devils. In the final round of stroke play of her senior year, she was crucial in sending the team to match play.
Swedick and LaHa both tied for 54th overall, shooting 10-over par. Swedick, in her first NCAA Championships appearance, improved with each round — after a five-over 77 and a four-over 76 in the first two rounds, the freshman ended strong with a one-over 73 and an even-par 72. LaHa began with a three-over 75 and a two-over 74. She had a strong third round with an even-par 72, but ended with a five-over 77. The sophomore finished 120th in her first appearance in 2024, marking a more than 60-place improvement this year.
Skoler, however, struggled a bit, finishing 77th overall and shooting 22-over par. She began with a three-over 75, which ended up being her best score of any round. The next three scores for her were a five-over 77, four-over 76 and a brutal 10-over 82 in the final round.
The tournament marked the end of Virginia’s 2024-25 season. It was one of the best years the program has had as of late, and, with its fourth-round drama and near match-play upset, it ended in fitting fashion.
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