Washburn Golf headed to NCAA championship

TOPEKA, (KSNT) -- The Washburn Golf program is headed to the NCAA Division II Championship for the first time since the 2011-2012 season.

They qualified for the championship after placing 4th in the NCAA Central/Midwest Regional tournament. On the first day of play, the Ichabods were tied for 8th place, but they rallied together to make a comeback.

The team finished the tournament shooting 16-over-par to clinch the final spot. Seniors on the team said this moment is a goal they have had for a while and it is a huge accomplishment to them.

"I'm proud of this team because of just the resilience we have," senior Ian Trebilcock said. "We went into the final round, we were like ten strokes back of where we needed to be. I kept telling the guys we are a final round team. We always come back and that's what we did."

They also said seniors had the choice on whether or not to return this season.

"We stuck together the seniors that came back had the decision to either come back or not come back and we did," senior Andrew Becklersaid. "We had one goal in mind and that was to make it to nationals. We kind of had our backs up against the wall the last day and it was cool that the seniors kind of stepped up."

While the season had a lot of challenges due to the pandemic, the team made sure they remained motivated and kept their focus on the overall goal.

"It's been a lot of hard work," senior Griffin Mott said. "We focused a lot on kind of just being a mentally focused team rather than our physical talent. We kept talking and sending motivational quotes in our group messages and trying to make sure we were always on top of our game not just physically but mentally."

Division II tees off next week on May 17 at the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.