Medalist winner Albane Valenzuela of Stanford
(Golfweek Photo)
ALBUQUERQUE, NM (May 10, 2017) - It was a clean sweep this week at the Albuquerque Regional as top-seed Stanford won the team title and Albane Valenzuela earned medalist honors. The victory for Stanford was their first outright regional title after sharing the crown in 2007 and 2016.
Playing at UNM South Championship Course on a windy day Stanford closed with a 5-over tally to post the winning 2-over tally.
Four Stanford players finished inside the top-15, led by the 6-under Valenzuela. The 2016 Olympian for Switzerland fired a final round 2-under 70 to register a four shot victory.
During the final round Valenzuela got off to a stellar start with birdies on the first two holes and then added a third birdie on the 13th hole. Valenzuela bogeyed just once on the 16th hole, but with a comfortable lead the dropped shot was of little matter.
The three other Cardinals in the top-15 were; Andrea Lee (T8; +2), Casey Danielson (T11; +3) and Shannon Aubert (T11; +3).
Stanford will now attempt to reach the NCAA Championship finals for a third straight season. In 2015 they won their programs first title and last year they fell short in a dramatic final against Washington.
Behind Valenzuela in the individual standings were Tatiana Wijaya (Pepperdine) and Martina Edberg (CSU Fullerton) in second place at 3-under while Ana Belac (Duke) and Bianca Pagdanganan (Gonzaga) shared fourth place at 2-under.
From each regional six teams will advance to the NCAA Championships.
Outside of Stanford the teams advancing are second place Duke (+9), Pepperdine (+15) was third, USC (+20) took fourth, in a tie for fifth it was California (+24) and Miami (+24).
The Hurricanes made the biggest move of the qualifying teams on Wednesday, jumping up three spots in the standings to make the NCAA Championship for the second straight year, the first time they have accomplished that feat since 1991-1992.
From the region the most notable team to miss the cut was defending champion Washington as they finished 27-over and in eighth place.
In addition to the teams moving on, the top-three individuals not on a qualifying team advanced to the NCAA Championship. The group includes Martina Edberg (CSU Fullerton), Bianca Pagdanganan (Gonzaga) and Nadine White (Campbell).
-Stanford athletics contributed to this story
ABOUT THE NCAA Women's West Regional
54 hole women's NCAA Regional from which the low
teams advance to the NCAA Championship.
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