The clock struck midnight on Eastern Michigan’s Cinderella story, but it was still quite the season for its women’s golf team.
In its first ever team appearance in the NCAA Tournament, Eastern Michigan made it all the way to the semifinals where it finally lost to three-time champion and No. 1 seed Stanford, 5-0, in match play Tuesday afternoon at Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.
“I guess the dream had to end eventually, but again, (I’m) just so happy with our team,” Eastern Michigan coach Josh Brewer said Tuesday night in an interview on Golf Channel. “And (I’ve) probably never had a team excited to go ahead and accept a semifinalist trophy, but again, it just tells you how far we’ve come in a few years.”
Stanford’s Megha Ganne — who beat Michigan State’s Brooke Biermann for the U.S. Women’s Amateur title last August — clinched Stanford’s spot in the NCAA final against Southern Cal on Wednesday by edging out Eastern Michigan’s Baiyok Sukterm with par on the 15th hole.
The Eagles downed Texas and NCAA individual champion Farah O’Keefe, 3.5-1.5, in the quarterfinals Tuesday morning to clinch their semifinal berth.
If Cinderella wore “Eastern” across her back this week, that’s not because Eastern Michigan got here by a mere stroke of luck. Just two years ago, it hired Brewer in 2024 after Georgia fired its coach of a dozen years for failing to get out of an NCAA regional.
Brewer took over an EMU program that ranked well outside the top 200, but saw growth in his first season as freshman Savannah de Bock made an NCAA Regional.
The Eagles put together a strong roster over the offseason that included two returners in de Bock and Australian sophomore Erina Tan. Thai golfer Baiyok Sukterm joined the team from the NAIA’s Lindsay Wilson following a year of JUCO.
Californian twins Janae Leovao and Jasmine Leovao — who grew up 15 minutes up I-5 from the course they played at the NCAA championship — came in as transfer seniors from Long Beach State.
De Bock finished stroke play ranked 12th among all golfers at three-under par over 72 holes. Sukterm, ranked 79th in the country, finished 14th in the field at two-under. Jasmine Leovao made a putt on the 18th hole to clinch the win over Texas in the quarterfinal after Janae Leovao went toe-to-toe with NCAA champion O’Keefe and won with four holes to spare.
“Truly, they’ve been coachable since day one. I don’t know why,” Brewer said. “It seems like it’s harder to do every day, but I don’t know. They just truly believed we could do something special, and then as the week built it just kind of became more and more special and, again, just an amazing run.”
Eastern Michigan had never made it to an NCAA regional as a team, let alone to the NCAA championship, before this season. But it earned its place with a fourth-place finish in the Tallahassee Regional and claimed a spot in the 30-team championship field.
A 10th-place position after the first three days of stroke play made the top 15 cut-line, and the Eagles earned their way to the quarterfinals by rising all the way to fifth after Monday’s final round of stroke play.
With a tie for third place in this year’s championship, Eastern Michigan finished the best out of any first-time NCAA championship competitor since 2000. Purdue (2000) and Illinois (2019) finished ninth in their first appearances, and Louisville placed 10th in 2007.
The Stanford team Eastern Michigan finally lost to Tuesday won NCAA titles in 2022 and 2024, with a runner-up finish to Northwestern last season. Its program had plenty of praise for Eastern Michigan’s season, including former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who is an adviser for the Cardinal.
“I really have a great appreciation for what Eastern Michigan has achieved here,” Rice told Golf Channel. “Because that’s not easy to come in from — they hadn’t had a program for so long, and so it’s great to see them do so well, too.”
“Eastern Michigan was on a heater and it took everything out of us to win this semifinal,” Stanford’s Andrea Revuelta told Golf Channel.
For Eastern Michigan, facing Stanford was always going to be a tough climb, but the end of such a historic run comes with somber feelings for its coach.
“You wish you had one more tee time, but it’s OK,” Brewer said. “We had a lot more than most people.”
cearegood@detroitnews.com
@ConnorEaregood
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Historic run for Eastern Michigan golf ended by Stanford in NCAA semis
Reporting by Connor Earegood, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
