A year ago, Kansas State women’s golf had a different feeling.
Head coach Stew Burke and his team felt they had been left at the altar, robbed of a chance to compete in the NCAA Tournament. Despite an impressive showing in multiple events, including a third-placed finish in the Big 12 Championship, Burke felt robbed that teams with potentially worse resumes made the tournament over the Wildcats.
“I think we deserved to be in last year. You had teams with losing records going to the postseason, and we were the only sport in the NCAA to allow that,” Burke said. “To be first out, it sucked. But I think [with] every setback, you build from that. You’ve got to be realistic like maybe we just didn’t do enough.”
As the bitterness subsided, Burke and his team had a different mindset.
Burke left no stone unturned this season, leading the Wildcats to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in eight years. They didn’t just stop there, though. In the NCAA Lexington Regional, the Wildcats tied for second place, clinching the NCAA Championship appearance.
Next week, the team that wasn’t supposed to make it will participate in the NCAA Championship at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Cali.
“We all feel really excited,” senior Sophie Bert said. “It’s such a good motivation to have when we went to regionals and then to actually make it happen, we were crazy happy.”
K-State’s journey to the apex hasn’t been pretty, but it has embodied the entire university’s mantra. During the Lexington regional, the Wildcats entered the final day of play just six shots clear of the cutline. While that’s enough comfort to put a team in the driver's seat, it will lead to nerves. After all, one bad outing on the final day and your season is over.
However, the Wildcats dug deep and found an extra push. Led by Bert and senior Carla Bernat – the conference’s player of the year – the Wildcats finished 10-under par in the final round, firmly securing their spot in the championship.
“We build into the tournament and then we kind of blitz at the last round,” said Burke. “We did it at Big 12s, it's there. I’d like to see them to it the first round or three rounds, but that’s a testament to everything we work on.”
As expected, Bernat was brilliant on the final day, finishing 6 under. That figure included her first career albatross on the 5th hole. Bernat ended as the best individual at the tournament, all but securing herself as one of the nation’s top golfers.
It hasn’t just been Bernat, though. As Burke explains, a team is only as good as their fourth scorer, and K-State has continually gotten strong performances from golfers outside of Bernat and Burke. During the regional, it was Nanami Nakashima who shone, finishing 5-under. Alenka Navarro also had an impressive tournament, finishing at even par.
“It’s the self-belief,” Burke said about the improvement of other golfers. “We’ve worked really hard on our mental this year. Our sports psychologist has done a great job in training the players … Having teammates like Carla and Sophie achieve things on the big scale certainly shows them it’s possible. And for me, that’s a testament to what we’re trying to do here. We’re not just trying to improve players, but we’re setting goals.”
It might also help that K-State realizes they’re underdogs.
This season, Burke hasn’t kept it a secret that some people don’t believe the Wildcats belong in the National Championship. Sometimes, that might even feel disrespectful, but K-State is okay with that as they prepare to make more history.
“We know there’s a little bit of disrespect for us,” he said. “When a program’s not had a history of being great, people are surprised when you do it.”
That feeling has translated to the players, too. Bernat remembers having breakfast in Lexington after the first day when someone told her that the Wildcats were “doing really well.” Bernat, however, knew the team could accomplish more.
“I think that was a motivation,” she said. “Being the underdog sometimes is good. Knowing that you have nothing to lose and just to win, it’s a really motivation.”
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