BELLINGHAM, Wash. – For the 20th consecutive season, the Western Washington University men’s golf team has advanced to the NCAA Division II Championships.
WWU is the No. 8 seed in the West Region, and will compete in the 20-team West/South Central Super Regional that will be played at Tascosa Golf Club in Amarillo, Texas May 7-9. The three-day, 54-hole tournament will be hosted by West Texas A&M University.
The streak of consecutive NCAA Championships appearances dates back to WWU’s inaugural year as an NCAA member in 1998-99.
Western finished 2nd in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference Championships earlier this week in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, snapping its string of back-to-back conference championships. But the Vikings ended the two-day tournament on a high note with the best team score in the final round (-3, 281) and sophomore Ethan Casto (Snohomish, WA) won individual medalist honors finishing 4-under-par for the tournament, winning in a sudden-death playoff.
The Vikings are led by the GNAC individual champion, Casto, who is second on the team with a 73.85 stroke average. Freshman Brody Bonfilio (Boise, ID/Bishop Kelly) looks to impress at his first regional appearance as he leads the team with five top-10 finishes and a team-leading scoring average of 73.00 (+1.29 to par). Juniors Cody Roth (Bellingham, WA) and Michael Butler (Sammamish, WA), along withCasto, played in the regionals last year where the Vikings advanced to the NCAA finals.
The NCAA Division II Championships field consists of 80 teams and 32 individuals that will play in four super regional tournaments across the country May 7-9. At a minimum, the top three teams and the top two student-athletes not with a team from each regional (regardless of region) will advance to the finals May 21-25, at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at the Shoals, Fighting Joe Course in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. The remaining eight team berths will be allocated based on the regions represented in the prior year’s head-to-head medal play portion of the championships, with the maximum number of teams from a given region capped at seven. The finals will be hosted by the University of North Alabama.
