Virginia's Historic Run at NCAA Men's Golf Championships Comes to an End

UVA's historic run at the NCAA Men's Golf Championships came to an end on Tuesday as No. 7 seed Virginia fell to No. 2 seed Florida in a competitive 3-2 match in the quarterfinals of match play at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Arizona. 

The Cavaliers advanced to the match play stage of the tournament for the first time ever as they placed seventh after four rounds of stroke play, with only the top eight of the 30 participating teams advancing out of stroke play. UVA was the lowest-ranked team at No. 16 to advance to match play, securing a spot by shooting 11-over 1131 over the four rounds of stroke play. 

Freshman sensation Ben James led the Cavaliers in stroke play, shooting a 4-under 276 to finish sixth on the individual leaderboards. Fellow UVA freshman Bryan Lee posted a 2-over 282 to place 22nd, while Deven Patel was 52nd at 288. Pietro Bovari shot 290 to place 58th and Duangmanee shot 297 to place 79th. 

Virginia was matched up with No. 2 seed Florida in match play and the Cavaliers and Gators battled down to the wire, with the match not being decided until the 18th hole of the final individual match. 

UVA scored the first point of the match as Bryan Lee got the better of Fred Biondi, who just one day earlier finished atop the leaderboards at the end of stroke play to win the NCAA individual championship. Lee defeated Biondi handily, going up by six with five holes to play and never losing a hole. 

Florida answered as John DuBois pulled away on the 15th and 16th holes to earn a 3&2 win over UVA's Pietro Bovari. The Gators looked to gain the lead as Matthew Kress went up by two on Deven Patel with three holes to play, but Patel rallied to win the final three holes to put the Cavaliers back in front 2-1. 

After playing solid golf for four-straight days in stroke play, Ben James didn't have his best day against Florida's Ricky Castillo on Tuesday, as Castillo cruised to a wire-to-wire 4&3 win. 

That left the match to be determined by Florida's Yuxin Lin and Virginia's George Duangmanee, who grabbed the lead after the second hole and maintained that lead through the 15th hole. But, Lin won the final three holes to earn a 2UP win and clinch the victory for the Gators. 

The Cavaliers came very close to advancing to the semifinals, but their appearance in match play still marks their best finish at the NCAA Championships in program history. UVA's previous best finish was 10th at the 2017 NCAA Championships. 

“It was a record year in a number of ways,” said Virginia head coach Bowen Sargent. “We reached No. 1 in the nation for the first time back in the fall. We went to match play for the first time at ACCs and also here. We had the highest NCAA finish in the program’s history. We set a high bar this year for the program and accomplished a lot of great things. Hopefully Ben will go on to win freshman of the year and that will be another tremendous accomplishment. It was a wonderful year when you look it at as a whole.”

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