Northern Arizona\u2019s NCAA postseason is over, 18 holes earlier than expected.<\/p>\n
The Lumberjacks, competing in an NCAA regional for the first time in four years as the automatic qualifier out of the Big Sky, were disqualified from the team competition during Tuesday\u2019s second round of the NCAA Waco Regional after senior Lizzie Neale withdrew midway through her round with a back injury and left the squad with just three players.<\/p>\n
Northern Arizona had eight players on its roster, but it only traveled four players to Ridgewood Country Club \u2013 Neale, ranked No. 170 in the country, as well as junior Amy Hodgkins (311), junior Frankie Dezis (394) and freshman Lydia Lin (627). Three others were either dismissed from or left the program earlier this semester, and senior Nina Lukyanenko, who was T-10 at the Big Sky Championship, couldn\u2019t make the trip to Waco because of her wedding, which is scheduled for Thursday in Flagstaff, Arizona. Northern Arizona head coach Brad Bedortha blamed himself for the wedding conflict, as he initially communicated to the team earlier this season that regionals were last week, May 4-6.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been a comedy of errors that were extremely unfortunate,\u201d Bedortha told Golf Channel via phone on Tuesday evening. \u201cThis has just been a year that I could\u2019ve never have imagined in my wildest dreams, and we\u2019ve had the best team we\u2019ve ever had. \u2026 Somehow it just hasn\u2019t worked out. Thankfully, they can\u2019t take the conference championship trophy away.\u201d<\/p>\n
Northern Arizona won three times this season, including its 10th Big Sky title, while achieving a No. 77 national ranking, the best in Bedortha\u2019s 18 seasons with the Lumberjacks. Neale, who holds every major school record, boasted five top-10s, including a playoff loss at conference. Bedortha was named Big Sky coach of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you win the conference, you pretty much get voted coach of the year,\u201d Bedortha said. \u201cI got voted coach of the year, and I\u2019m like, This just does not feel right. I should not be awarded this for what\u2019s happened. I take full responsibility. I should\u2019ve been a better leader in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedortha preferred not to expand on what he described as \u201cteam dynamic issues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just brutally hard for everybody,\u201d Bedortha added, \u201cand obviously, we\u2019re still here, and the players that are here are doing the best they can, getting along well and making the best of this experience regardless, and I give them all the credit in the world for trying to work through this situation the best they can. I\u2019m trying to be here and be as present as possible and do the best job for my players that are here right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Had Northern Arizona not had enough players, the Big Sky would\u2019ve had the ability to award its AQ to the runner-up team, Northern Colorado.<\/p>\n
Neale, who missed action earlier this spring and barely made it through conference, shot 77 in the first round and was clearly struggling physically. She had just made the turn on Tuesday when she told her coaches she couldn\u2019t continue.<\/p>\n
This marks just the second time in NCAA women\u2019s regional history that a team has been disqualified after it was unable to field four players. East Carolina was forced out of the 2018 NCAA Austin Regional after it had just two healthy players for the second round. Three Pirates were among those stricken by a virus, believed to have originated from water coolers on the course.<\/p>\n
Hodgkins (T-15), Lin (T-39) and Dezis (50th) will be allowed to compete as individuals on Wednesday. Hodgkins is only two shots back of the projected current top player not on an advancing team. Through two rounds, SMU leads the Waco Regional at 14 under, eight shots clear of Texas A&M. LSU and Oregon are third and fourth, respectively, while host Baylor and Tulsa are tied for fifth at 6 over, three behind the Ducks and and two up on SEC champion Tennessee. Only the top five teams advance to next week\u2019s NCAA Championship.<\/p>\n
If Northern Arizona\u2019s season does indeed end Wednesday, however, Bedortha says he\u2019ll need some time to decompress before erasing the proverbial dry-erase board. He\u2019s signed three incoming freshmen to go along with three returners, and he also planned to tap into the transfer portal when that opens later this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been easily the hardest year of my life coaching,\u201d Bedortha said. \u201cI\u2019ve coached 26 years, and I could never have imagined this. If you would\u2019ve told me 100 scenarios on what would\u2019ve happened this year, not one of them would be this, ever, not in my wildest imagination. This is probably scenario 158, sitting here right now, in a Hampton Inn in Waco, Texas, being conference champions, still feeling like we\u2019re at rock bottom.<\/p>\n
Yet, once we\u2019re done, I know I have to close the book on this year, look back with fond memories on a lot of great things that we\u2019ve accomplished and done and some great people that are within our program, and embrace with open arms what the future is going to be. <\/p>\n
\u201cI still believe that we can bounce back and have another great year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northern Arizona\u2019s NCAA postseason is over, 18 holes earlier than expected. The Lumberjacks, competing in an NCAA regional…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":792285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[1430,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-792284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-golf","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116564566169939637","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}