DU women, headed to NCAA regionals for 23rd straight time, will tee it up in Norman, Okla.; CSU’s Kara Kaneshiro lands individual regional berth
By Gary Baines – 4/23/2025
The University of Denver women’s golf team is headed to an NCAA regional tournament for the 23rd consecutive year in which there’s been a postseason. And key cogs of the program — both current and past — found out on Wednesday where they’ll be competing in the first phase of NCAA postseason action.
First, as for the current Pioneers, they’ll be the 10th seed out of a dozen teams in Norman, Okla., when regionals are held May 5-7. They’ll be the only Colorado-based women’s Division I program to advance a full team to the 2025 regionals, but Colorado State sophomore Kara Kaneshiro will be headed to the Lubbock, Texas Regional as an individual. Kaneshiro has recorded five top-10 showings this season, including a fifth place at last week’s Mountain West Conference meet.
The regional plans were finalized a day after DU earned an automatic regional berth by virtue of winning the Summit League tournament for the sixth straight year. In fact, the Pioneers have won their league tourneys 20 of the last 21 times they’ve been contested.
Senior Clara Gestsdottir from Iceland won the Summit League individual title for a second straight year. But two of DU’s regulars on the traveling squad are Coloradans, with senior Emma Bryant of Aurora leading the team in season-long stroke average and Logan Hale from Erie notching two top-10 finishes this season.
DU, ranked No. 66 in the nation in Division I, is playing its best golf of the season, having posted top-2 team finishes in its last two tournaments and top-5s in its last four events.
At each of the six NCAA DI regionals, the top five team finishers and the top individual not on those teams will advance to the national championships, set for May 16-21 in Carlsbad, Calif. Last year, DU finished sixth at regionals, falling short of the fifth and final spot by four strokes.
Meanwhile, two key figures from DU’s past also are headed to NCAA regionals.
Coach Dawn Shockley, a Colorado native and product of Estes Park who played her college golf at DU, will take her Oregon State team to the Norman Regional in which DU also will compete. The Beavers, who went to the NCAA national championships each of the past two years, are seeded eighth in Oklahoma. Stanford, the defending national champion and current No. 1-ranked team in the nation, also is in the Norman field, as is the University of Oklahoma, which will be playing on its home course.
It should be noted that Shockley won an individual NCAA regional title as a DU golfer, in 2009.
Meanwhile, former DU head coach Lindsay Kuhle saw her University of Kansas women’s team picked for the NCAA regionals for the third straight year. The Jayhawks will be seeded fourth at the Columbus, Ohio Regional.
In all, 72 teams were selected for women’s NCAA regionals, with the fields and the seedings unveiled on the Golf Channel.
For all the regionals selections, CLICK HERE.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com