As Ian Maspat lined up a birdie putt on the second playoff hole at the NCAA Regionals last week in Corvallis, Ore., he said he felt more excitement than pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake this putt and my career at the University of San Diego and my teammates\u2019 season goes on for another and biggest week of the year,\u201d Maspat remembered thinking. \u201cIt was on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maspat sank the birdie putt. Then teammate Cooper Humphreys did the same, and USD won the playoff and earned the 30th and final berth to the NCAA Division I Golf Championships. The tournament starts Friday at a familiar spot \u2014 the La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad.<\/p>\n
The Toreros don\u2019t see themselves at the back end of the NCAA field.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always believe we can do it,\u201d USD coach Evan Emerick said earlier this week. \u201cAnd last week took that belief to the next level. We were playing for each other in a way I\u2019ve seldom seen. I think we\u2019re capable of doing a lot more at the NCAAs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI see us making it all the way,\u201d said Maspat, a senior from Scripps Ranch High School who is the veteran leader on a team that enters the week as the second-youngest squad in the NCAA finals. \u201cNo one expects us to do anything special. But I feel we\u2019re an underrated team. And if it comes down to the last shot \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Anything can happen \u2026 as it did last week for the Toreros in Oregon.<\/p>\n
USD was buried deep in the regionals field after two rounds, with little chance of becoming one of the five teams transferring from the regionals to the championships.<\/p>\n
The Toreros held a team meeting after the second round.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players had a lot of fire,\u201d said freshman Reed Arnaldo, a La Costa Canyon High School grad. \u201cBecause we were far behind, we took a pledge just to play our best and not look at the scoreboard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Emerick: \u201cThe message was to play our game. We got going on the final round.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birdies started falling early in the round. All five Toreros were under par. USD climbed to as high as third in the standings before slipping back on the final hole to fall into a tie with Liberty for the final spot in the finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen,\u201d Emerick said, \u201cwe rebounded for the second time in the same day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maspat said the second playoff hole was \u201ca special moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSinking that putt was one of the best feelings I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d he said. \u201cUSD means the world to me. I couldn\u2019t have drawn up the last three years to be any better. The program is getting better every year. I can see USD being a major golf school. And I\u2019ve grown a lot as a person and a player because of USD.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maspat will be the lone senior representing USD at La Costa. You Seong Choi is a junior. Humphreys is a sophomore, and Arnaldo and Reid Piron are freshmen. Arnaldo and Choi led USD at the regionals, tying for 21st at 2-under 211. Piron and Maspat tied for 26th at even-par. Freshmen Brady Clark and Charlie Gillespie are the leading reserves.<\/p>\n
Although La Costa is just up the road from USD, the Toreros will not have a home-course advantage. NCAA rules state that players can\u2019t play or practice on the NCAA Championship course for a year ahead of the tournament \u2026 with one major exception.<\/p>\n
Members are allowed to play. And Arnaldo has been a member at La Costa since 2019 and also played there as his high school\u2019s home course.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve played the North Course, the NCAA Tournament course, at La Costa too many times to count,\u201d said Arnaldo. \u201cMy buddies and I play it every day during the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat should be a little bit of an advantage. It\u2019s definitely a course that you need to play a few times to understand. The greens are weird. They are firm with major slopes. It fits me well. It\u2019s going to play around 7,500 yards. You have to be smart about the approach shots. It rewards good ball striking and course management. Chipping around the greens can be difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Emerick:\u00a0\u201cReed certainly knows his way around the course. He\u2019s one of our best. He can let guys know what to avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Every week, U-T contributor Bill Center highlights one San Diego college team that\u2019s making strides on and off the field. To nominate a team, email wcenter27@gmail.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Ian Maspat lined up a birdie putt on the second playoff hole at the NCAA Regionals last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1327,181,74,76,75,127,3425],"class_list":["post-333593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-college-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sports","tag-toreros"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}