By Mike ‘Mex’ Carey- MSU and Roy J. Akers-www.skyviewsports.net
East Lansing, Mich. – In recent years on selection day for the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Regionals, Michigan State’s women’s golf team had to wait through most of the hour-long show to find out where they were headed.
On this Wednesday afternoon at the Lasch Golf Center, the Spartans didn’t have to wait long, as the Head Coach Stacy Slobodnik-Stoll and her MSU team found on just minutes into the show that they were headed to Oklahoma as the No. 4 seed in a 12-team field.
The regional will be played from Monday, May 5 to Wednesday, May 7.
The Spartan were an at-large selection and are the No. 4 seed in the Norman Regional, which will be hosted by the University of Oklahoma at the OU Jimmie Austin Golf Club.
The 12 teams competing in the Norman Regional include, in order of seed, Stanford, Northwestern, North Carolina, Michigan State, Duke, Oklahoma, Baylor, Oregon State, Tulsa, Denver, Furman and Southern Mississippi.
“Last year, since we played here (in the 2024 East Lansing Regional), we knew we were going, so it’s been two years since we had that excitement and coming up first, they were a little shocked,” Slobodnik-Stoll said. “I don’t think anyone had Norman on their radar, but we’re excited. Every field at the regional is tough. All of the teams are coming to play and they have all proved to be some of the best teams throughout the entire season.
“Every year, we have our work cut out for us, but I feel very good about the teams that are there and very good about our team.”
Michigan State will be making its ninth-straight NCAA Regional appearance and the 25th in the last 26 years since 1999, all under Slobodnik-Stoll.
Last year in the East Lansing Regional, hosted by MSU at Forest Akers West Golf Course, the Spartans finished in third place among 12 teams and earned a trip the NCAA Championships, the third in the previous four season. Michigan State has made 16 trips to the NCAAs, including 14 under Slobodnik-Stoll.
“We expect to win and we expect to get a spot at the national championship, that’s the ultimate goal,” Slobodnik-Stoll said. “From a coaching perspective, finishing first is just easier on your nerves because you know you’re going. When your fourth or fifth and you have teams coming in behind, you get a little nervous. When Katie (Lu) and Brooke (Biermann), and Brooke won individually, that was the first time we had ever won an NCAA Regional (Palm Beach in 2023), that was the first time we had ever won a regional and that was a special moment in their lives.”
Michigan State is ranked No. 25 in the country in the latest NCAA Division I rankings and is coming off a runner-up finish at the Big Ten Championships last weekend. The Spartans were one of eight schools from the Big Ten Conference to reach the NCAA Regionals.
Regional play will take place May 5-7 at six regional sites, with 396 participants and each site featuring 12 teams and six individuals. The top five teams (30 teams total) and the low individual not on an advancing team (six individuals total) from each regional site will advance to compete in the national championships to be played May 16-21 at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
Championship play will be hosted by Texas, with the final three days of the championships televised live by the GOLF Channel.
