“It shows we have the ability to do it,” third-year coach Conner Lash said. “Six strokes over three rounds is pretty much nothing. We were right there.
“It goes to show that kids from Wright State can play well at a regional.”
The Raiders will begin their quest for their first trip to the nationals in the 14-team regional at Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., as the 12 seed.
PAC-12 champion Arizona State is the No. 1 seed, followed by Washington, Oklahoma, Cal and Oklahoma State.
San Diego is the host school for the event, which will be held May 13-15.
“Having the right mindset is going to be huge for us. Life’s too short to go into something like this and play scared or not have confidence,” Lash said.
“Nobody expects us to move on. You’re going there and kind of playing with house money. And there’s no reason to not play free.”
The Raiders are coming off a wire-to-wire victory at the Horizon League championship, winning by 18 stokes.
There are 30 automatic bids and 51 at-large picks for the tourney. Each region has 13 or 14 teams, and the top five advance to the 30-team nationals May 24-29 in Carlsbad, Calif.
“We all pretty much wanted to go out west, so we’re excited about that,” said fifth-year player Mikkel Mathiesen. “The team is fired up. We’ve got a couple weeks to get our games in the right spot, and we’ll be good to go.”
The Raiders may be short on experience, but all five starters earned postseason honors.
Mathiesen was named HL Golfer of the Year. Senior Andrew Flynn, the individual league champ, and sophomore Shane Ochs made the five-player all-conference first team, while sophomore Adam Horn was named second team.
Timmy Hollenbeck, who lost to Flynn in a playoff for the league crown, was named freshman of the year.
“We’ve played a lot of golf where we’ve been the favorites and have been expected to show up and play well. Now, we’re expected to NOT play very well and be one of the bottom teams, which I think will help us,” Mathiesen said.
“I’m going to tell the boys to go out there and play with freedom and play with a little chip on our shoulders and see if we can get a result out of it.”
The Raiders, who are making their seventh trip to the regionals, will fly out Saturday, May 11, play a practice round at the The Farms Golf Club on Sunday, and begin tourney play Monday.
“When you recruit guys, you want to be able to say, ‘You can play against some of the best competition in the country here,’” Lash said.
“We don’t always get to play against schools that big and of that caliber, and it’s a good test for us. Hopefully, we can go out there and put up some numbers.”
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