All-Star Wake Forest Women’s Team Wins First NCAA National Championship

The star-studded Wake Forest women’s golf team solidified its dominance on Wednesday by capturing the program’s first NCAA Division I National Championship. 

With a 3–1 victory over USC, Wake Forest will bring home a team title for just the 10th time in the school’s athletic history. The team came up just shy of the victory in 2019, when they were defeated by Duke in the championship match. 

Rachel Keuhn, the No. 4 ranked amateur in the world, clinched the first point for Wake Forest with a crushing 6 and 4 victory over Amari Avery, Keuhn’s teammate at the 2022 Curtis Cup. 

Emilia Migliaccio secured the next point in her match against Cindy Kou, during which she never trailed. Migliaccio is another former Curtis Cup team member, and as a graduate student, she just completed her sixth year at Wake Forest. 

“Emilia, they call her grandma because she’s here for the sixth time,” Kim Lewellen, Wake Forest’s coach, said. “What she’s done is be a veteran, so what she did is come into her own as being a third coach. That’s wonderful to have a resume like that to come here and be able to do this for us, we wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. That’s why we put her out first every time.”

Finally, senior Lauren Walsh solidified the result for her team with a win over Brianna Navarrosa. Mimi Rhodes led her match over Christine Wang when the victory was decided, while Carolina Lopez-Chacarra lost to Catherine Park. 

“I mean look at them, look at how happy they are. They worked incredibly hard, they are always working on the small things, the big things. Anything that they can do to gain half of a stroke. When you’re at this level gaining half-a-stroke, they made history for Wake Forest and these young ladies will have a memory of a lifetime. It’s incredible,” Lewellen said.