Illinois finishes ninth in its seventh NCAA Regional appearance since 2017.

May 7, 2025

(Cover photo courtesy Illinois Athletics)

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The furious and dramatic comeback of Illinois sophomore Yurang Li came up one stroke short of reaching the NCAA Championships.

Li, who will turn 19 years old next month, arrived at the par-4, No. 3 hole (which was her 12th hole of the day) on Wednesday afternoon knowing the Illini were all but eliminated from advancing as a team and stood around half-dozen shots away from the individual transfer spot. The native of Fullerton, Calif., who ended the 2024-25 season with the team’s second-lowest stroke average, proceeded to go on what has to be the one of the best seven-hole stretches of her competitive golf life to find herself back in the competition for the individual transfer spot to women’s college golf’s national championship.

Li played her final seven holes at 5-under-par including consecutive birdies at No. 3, the par-5 4th hole and the par-3 fifth hole and then finishing her 2024-25 college golf season with a marvelous approach shot at the par-4 9th hole. Li slam-dunked her second shot for eagle on the 354-yard finishing hole on the front side to complete a front-nine (which was her final nine holes of the competition) at 4-under-par 32 for a final-round 69.

Due to the Illini being near the bottom of the team leaderboard after the first two days, Illinois players began their round on the back nine while top players and teams were slated to begin their final round of competition on the complete other side of the Ohio State University Golf Club in Columbus, Ohio. Therefore, the run Li made were on holes that the leaders she was chasing had already played in much more windy and wet conditions.

By the time, Li was pulling her golf ball out of the ninth hole for the second eagle of the day at No. 9, she had found herself at 1-under-par for the tournament in a tie with Houston third-year player Moa Svedenskiold and SMU’s Emily Odwin for the individual transfer spot to the 2025 NCAA Championships in at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.

While obviously the five best team scores would send their players to the NCAA Championships, the highest individual finisher from a non-qualifying team also advance out of each NCAA regional to the national stage in California.

With Odwin and Li in the process of signing their scorecards, Svedenskiold still had two holes left to finish on the back nine. The native of Sweeden, who became the third player in Houston women’s golf history to record multiple individual tournament titles during her career this season, managed to birdie the par-3, 160-yard 17th hole and par the finishing hole to record a three-day total of 2-under-par 213. While Houston will not advance as a team, Svedenskiold, who is currently the 118th-ranked amateur in the world, will tee it up as the individual qualifier from the NCAA Columbus Regional on May 16 in the NCAA Championships.

Similarly to practically every other team, Illinois finished its final day with a much more confident level of play as compared to the skyrocketing scores of Tuesday caused by heavy rain, heavy wind and borderline on-the-edge playing conditions of Tuesday.

Anna Ritter, who was competing just 18 miles southwest of her hometown of New Albany, Ohio where two-time Ohio Girls Golfer of the Year and led New Albany High School to four-straight OHSAA Girls Golf Division I State Championships, recorded her fifth under-par of the season in her final 18 holes of competition for the Illini in 2024-25 with a 1-under-par 71. After an opening hole bogey, Ritter played the final 17 holes at 2-under-par to jump 15 spots on the individual leaderboard to finish tied for 32nd in the 90-player field.

The Illini jumped from 10th to ninth in the team standings and finished just nine shots out of the fifth and final transfer spot to the NCAA Championships. The only time Renee Slone’s Illinois women’s golf program has qualified for the NCAA Championships was 2019 when the Illini were led by four All-Big Ten selections (Kornkamol Sukaree, Crystal Wang, Tristyn Nowlin and Bing Singhsumalee) led the team to a ninth place national finish.

The Kansas women's golf team is headed to the NCAA Championship for the first time since 2014 after capturing the program’s first ever regional championship. The Jayhawks easily cleared the best team score of the three days of competition with a 12-under 276 total where three of their four qualifying scores on Wednesday were 70 or better. This marks just the third NCAA Championship appearance for the Jayhawks, with the previous trips coming in 1990 and 2014. It's also only the second time Kansas has advanced through regional qualifying, as NCAA Regionals were first introduced in the sport in 1993.

Kansas sophomore Lyla Louderbaugh became the first player in program history to earn medalist honors at an NCAA Regional Championship as the left-hander blitzed the final-round test with eight birdies on Wednesday to record a 7-under 65 to win the medalist honors by a dominant eight shots for Louderbaugh’s first career collegiate tournament win.

The final four team qualifying spots to the NCAA Championships were No. 2 Arkansas, No. 14 Ohio State, the Mountain West Conference Champions UNLV and No. 10 LSU rebounded from a disastrous Tuesday experience to post a 1-over-par 289 to surpass SMU for the final spot.

NCAA Columbus Regional Team Scores
No. 23 Kansas - 289-293-276--858 (-6)
No. 2 Arkansas - 282-298-281--861 (-3)
No. 9 Ohio State - 279-303-283--865 (+1)
UNLV - 287-294-287--868 (+4)
No. 10 LSU - 284-309-289---882 (+18)
--------------- (Top 5 Teams Advanced to NCAA Championship ---------------------
Houston - 295-301-290--886 (+22)
Kent State - 287-306-296--889 (+25)
SMU - 289-303-298--890 (+26)
ILLINOIS - 289-311-291--891 (+27)
Xavier - 289-310-294--893 (+29)
Illinois State - 299-318-305--922 (+58)
Oakland - 311-325-308--942 (+78)

ILLINI SCORES
Yurang Li - 69-77-69--215 (-1)
Anna Ritter - 73-81-71--225 (+9)
Lexanne Halama - 73-76-77--226 (+10)
Brielle Mapanao - 74-80-74--228 (+12)
Victoria Zheng - 77-78-80--235 (+19)