UAlbany Golf Team Making National News
ALBANY, N.Y. — After winning the MAAC Championship, the University at Albany golf team will compete in their second-ever NCAA Regional this coming weekend in Tallahassee, Florida.
The women led the MAAC Championship from wire to wire in a nine team field that took place on April 20th through the 22nd. They finished 12 shots ahead of second place Quinnipiac in the team competition while senior Annie Songen Lee won the individual competition by seven strokes.
The team will depart this Friday to play in the NCAA Regional Championship at Don Veller Seminole Golf Course & Club in Tallahassee Florida on Monday, May 7 and concludes Wednesday, May 9. Six out of the eighteen teams plus three individuals will advance from the regional to compete in nationals.
Head coach Colleen Cashman-McSween is taking her team to the NCAA Regionals for the second time, with the first coming in 2015. She was recently named the MAAC Coach of the Year and she believes her team is ready for the challenge.
“The first time we went back in 2015 we are all kind of rookies then,” said McSween. “We were going back there this year kind of on a mission.”
Songen Lee was on the 2015 team that also made the regionals and she has a different mindset in her senior year at UAlbany.
“I think that the most that has changed was my mental game,” said Songen Lee. “Now even when I’m not playing great and I make a bogey the hole before I’m not discouraged.
The ladies on the team are eager to get back down to Florida on Friday and just have fun even though they are a longshot to advance.
“One thing that I try to sell to this program is being a part of a family,” said McSween. “I’m super close with my family and I want our golf team to be just like a family."