Women’s golf finishes 2nd at 2015 NCAA Championships

How far did Baylor women’s golf come this year in finishing as runners-up at the NCAA Championships?

This is a squad that finished 21st out of 23 teams at the first tournament of the year. But it didn’t take the Bears long to start rolling; they never finished lower than eighth the rest of the year. Baylor won four of their final 12 tournaments, finishing in the top-5 nine times. Big 12 Coach of the Year Jay Goble‘s squad saved the very best for last, winning both the Big 12 Championship and the NCAA San Antonio Regional — both program firsts.

Such success wasn’t a fluke. Baylor has reached the NCAA postseason 14 of the last 16 years, including each of Goble’s four seasons at the helm. Two of the program’s three NCAA Championships appearances have come during Goble’s tenure, topped by this year’s No. 2 finish, easily the best in program history.

[WATCH highlights from Baylor’s NCAA title match]

Across all sports, Baylor has won five team national championships: men’s tennis (2004), women’s basketball (2005 & 2012), equestrian (2012) and acrobatics & tumbling (2015). Including those titles, the runner-up finish for women’s golf this year marked just the eighth time in school history that a Baylor team has finished among the top two teams in the country, joining men’s basketball (1948) and men’s tennis (2005) in finishing second in the nation.

Next year’s squad loses just one senior — albeit a great one in three-time All-Big 12 honoree Hayley Davis — so Baylor fans can look forward to continued success from this program.

Sic ’em, Baylor women’s golf!