UNLV women’s golfer gets NCAA regional bid, but Rebels miss out as team
Junior Toa Yokoyama will carry the torch for UNLV at the NCAA women’s golf regionals next month.
Yokoyama earned one of the at-large selections as an individual for the tournament after the Rebels failed to gain a spot in the 72-team field despite being ranked 64th in the nation in the most recent Broadie poll. Twenty-seven automatic bids to conference champions, many ranked below UNLV, cost the Rebels a spot in the regionals. Colorado State, ranked 52nd, was the last team in.
Yokoyama has had a terrific spring for the Rebels, with four top-10 finishes and a national ranking of 33rd. The Tokyo native, who played her high school golf in Florida, had been as high as seventh in February and spent most of the spring in the 20s after her stellar performances.
Yokoyama is the top seed among individuals for the Las Vegas regional at Spanish Trail, one of six sites hosting regionals May 6 to 8. The top five teams from each regional along with the top individual not part of those teams will advance to the NCAA Championship from May 17 to 22 at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California.
The Las Vegas regional will have a Pac-12 flavor with top seed UCLA leading a group that includes Arkansas, Arizona, Florida State, California, Purdue, Baylor, Oklahoma, Colorado State, Kent State, Xavier and Dartmouth.
Top seeds at the other regionals include No. 1-ranked Stanford, Southern California, South Carolina, Louisiana State and defending champion Wake Forest.
Riana Mission, a junior at San Francisco and Las Vegas native who played at Clark High, earned an individual bid and is the second seed for the Cle Elum, Washington, regional.
Greg Robertson covers golf for the Review-Journal. He can be reached at grobertson@reviewjournal.com.