Freshman Stephanie Sherlock fired a final-round 72 for the University of Denver women’s golf team, helping the Pioneers jump three spots to a fourth-place finish Saturday at the NCAA West Regional in St. George, Utah.
As one of the final top eight teams at the regional, the Pioneers qualified for the NCAA championships. It will be DU’s first trip to the season- ending Division I national tournament in school history. The NCAA championships, at the LPGA International Golf Course in Daytona Beach, Fla., are May 22-25.
Sherlock’s three-round, 5-over-par 218 performance was worth a seventh-place individual finish. Oklahoma State’s Pernilla Lindberg was the medalist at 206. OSU tied Stanford for the regional team title.
DU was seventh after Friday’s second round.
Baseball
Avenging a first-round loss to New Mexico Highlands, Nebraska-Kearney swept back-to-back games Saturday against the Cowboys 9-8 and 14-4 to win the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference title in Grand Junction.
In the deciding game, No. 4 seed Nebraska-Kearney (32-22) received three hits and three RBIs from second baseman Cody Lusero and Paul Schleifer pitched a complete game with 10 strikeouts.
The Lopers had never won more than one game in the double-elimination RMAC Tournament.
New Mexico Highlands (38-21) was the No. 3 seed.
Women’s lacrosse
Colorado College erased a 9-0 deficit – the biggest comeback in the history of the Division III tournament – and topped Nazareth College of Rochester, N.Y., 12-11 in triple overtime of a regional semifinal in Salisbury, Md.
Robin Harvey’s fourth goal of the game propelled the Tigers into today’s regional championship game against Salisbury.
Trailing 9-2 at halftime, Colorado College went on an 8-1 run to force overtime. After each team scored once in the first six minutes of overtime, Harvey ended the game in sudden death.
Former Cherry Creek standout Caroline Cryer, a junior attacker at Duke, on Friday was named one of five finalists for the Tewaaraton Trophy, women’s lacrosse’s equivalent of football’s Heisman Trophy.
