Coastal Carolina women’s golf headed to Raleigh Regional

The Coastal Carolina women’s golf team will be traveling to N.C. State’s Lonnie Poole Golf Course next week for an NCAA Regional with an opportunity to advance to the Women’s NCAA Championships.

The Big South Conference champions learned their regional assignment while watching a Golf Channel regional selection show Monday night in a room at the HTC Center, where they were attending CCU’s Student-Athlete Excellence Awards.

The Chanticleers are the 13th seed among 18 teams in the regional next Thursday through Saturday and six teams and three individuals not on those teams will advance to the NCAA Championships from May 22-27 at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla.

The top six seeds in the regional South Carolina, LSU, Mississippi State, Northwestern, Florida and Central Florida.

“Honestly we didn’t really care where we went,” CCU coach Katie Quinney said. “We just wanted to have a good fair chance to make it out wherever we go, and we feel Raleigh will give us a good chance to do that.”

CCU will be paired with College of Charleston and Big South runner-up Campbell in the first round. CCU and Campbell are the lone Big South schools in the postseason. Other teams in the regional are host N.C. State, Furman, Alabama, Iowa State, Ohio State, Georgia Regents (formerly Augusta State), Seton Hall, Wichita State and Fairleigh Dickinson.

The Chants are unfamiliar with the difficult Lonnie Poole course and will have a practice round next Wednesday to learn the layout.

Quinney’s five starters will be Big South individual champion Lena Schaeffner, Big South Women’s Golf Freshman of the Year Malene Krollbol Hansen, Bailey Cocca, Emee Herbert and Frida Castillo.

“We’re comfortable with a lot of the teams that will be there and we’ve beaten a few of the ones that are ranked ahead of us,” Quinney said. “I hope they can stay calm and relax and enjoy it. They don’t have to play great, they just have to play three solid rounds of golf to give ourselves a chance.”

The CCU women won back-to-back tournaments in the fall at events hosted by Jacksonville and College of Charleston, earned a third victory at the Big South Championships at DeBordieu Club on April 15 to earn an automatic berth into an NCAA regional, and finished in the top three in two other events this spring.

The regional berth is CCU’s fifth in the past seven years and sixth overall.

This story was originally published April 27, 2015 at 8:33 PM with the headline "Coastal Carolina women’s golf headed to Raleigh Regional."