Stackhouse leads comeback, Stanford wins NCAA title

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Mariah Stackhouse picked a terrific time to live up to her Twitter handle.

Stackhouse goes by @MoStacksBirdies, and she made two clutch birdies to stay alive in Wednesday’s NCAA championship match in Bradenton, Fla. Then, when Baylor’s Hayley Davis missed a 3-foot putt on the first extra hole, Stanford had its first national title in women’s golf.

Barely more than a half-hour earlier, the Cardinal appeared on the brink of defeat. The teams were tied 2-2 - sophomore Casey Danielson and freshman Shannon Aubert had secured points for Stanford - when Davis hit a remarkable shot out of a muddy hazard alongside the No. 16 fairway. She made the ensuing birdie putt to take a 2-up lead on Stackhouse, with two holes left.

Stackhouse, a diminutive junior from Riverdale, Ga., then seized the moment. She made a two-putt birdie on No. 17 (a par-5), no doubt exhaling when Davis missed a 12-foot putt to clinch the title for Baylor.

And on No. 18, with players from both teams nervously gathered around the green, Stackhouse poured home a dramatic, 15-foot birdie putt to extend the match. She nearly made another birdie on the first extra hole, but her conceded par proved enough when Davis pushed her par putt right.

“I couldn’t sleep at all last night, because I knew it would come down to this,” Stackhouse told Golf Channel after the match.

Said coach Anne Walker: “If there’s a player you want in that situation, it’s Mariah Stackhouse.”

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Stackhouse struggled a bit this season, after earning All-America honors her first two years at Stanford. The Cardinal as a whole sputtered occasionally - they entered the NCAA Championships ranked No. 13 in the nation - but they clicked at precisely the right time.

“It seemed like we couldn’t get it together this spring, but there was no panic on our team,” Walker said. “We felt we could do this.”

Ron Kroichick is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: rkroichick@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ronkroichick