Throughout the 2018-19 academic year, the Great Lakes Valley Conference is celebrating its 40th anniversary by recognizing 40 teams that made a significant impact both on campus and at the Conference level. Our next featured team is the 2018 Indianapolis women’s golf squad.
40 TEAMS | 40 YEARS
WEEK 39: 2018 Indianapolis Women’s Golf
SEASON SUMMARY
The 2017-18 season for the University of Indianapolis women’s golf team was arguably the greatest season by any team in any sport in the 40 years of the GLVC. The Greyhounds competed in 13 tournaments over the course of the year, winning 11 of them, and finishing second and eighth in the other two. The eighth-place finish came at Ohio State’s Lady Buckeye Invitational, at which UIndy was the lone NCAA Division II competing. UIndy defeated Division I opponents Penn State, Minnesota, Maryland, Rutgers, Toledo, and Seton Hall, while finishing just three strokes behind the host Buckeyes in the rain-shortened 36-hole event. It wasn’t the first time the Hounds shined against Division I competition as they won the Ball State Cardinal Classic in mid-September by 13 shots in a field that included 18 DI programs. UIndy entered the postseason with a record-setting performance to capture the GLVC Championship at Fox Run Golf Club in Eureka, Missouri, securing an unprecedented seventh consecutive conference crown in the sport. The Greyhounds combined for a final-round team score of 1-under-par 287 to finish at 886, setting new conference marks for lowest 18- and 54-hole scores at the league championship. The team also set a conference record for margin of victory, besting runner-up Missouri-St. Louis by 37 strokes (which has since be reset by the Hounds with a 53-stroke win over UMSL in 2019). All five Hounds finished in the top 10, all five earned All-GLVC accolades, and senior Paxton DeHaven (74-74-71) earned her second consecutive GLVC individual title. At the NCAA East Super Regional, the Greyhounds (292-292-298) erased a three-stroke deficit at the start of the final round and went on to a five-shot victory over runner-up Grand Valley State at Katke Golf Course in Big Rapids, Michigan. The win gave UIndy its seventh consecutive NCAA Division II East Super Regional crown. Just a sophomore, Pilar Echeverria earned her second individual regional title. She carded scores of 69-71-76 to break a 36-hole tie with Grand Valley's Katie Chipman before claiming a second consecutive regional crown. The accomplishment came on the heels of earning her second straight GLVC Player of the Year honor. At the NCAA Championships at Bay Oaks Country Club in Houston, Texas, UIndy finished off an impressive stay by running away with the national title with a staggering 38-stroke win. The Greyhounds combined for a 72-hole score of 5-over 1,157, matching the tournament record for lowest team tally. The team win was punctuated by an individual national championship from junior Katharina Keilich with a 1-under 287 (71-71-72-73). Echeverria tied for second at 289 (73-75-72-69), with a final-round 69, matching the second-lowest single-round score of the entire tournament. Senior Kylie Raines (70-71-77-74—292) placed fourth, followed by classmates DeHaven (72-70-73-80—295) tied for seventh and Annika Haynes (73-79-78-74—304) tied for 27th. The year's final tournament also brought about the solidification of a number of program records. This group set new single-season marks for team scoring average (293.2) and winning percentage (.948). Echeverria also broke her own school record for lowest single-season average at 73.2 strokes per round.
IMPRESSIVE INDIVIDUALS
Katharina Keilich
- NCAA Champion (2018)
- Three-Time WGCA All-America (1st-2018, 2nd-2016, 2017)
- Two-Time CoSIDA Academic All-America® (1st-2018, 3rd-2017)
- Three-Time NCAA All-Super Region (2016-18)
- Three-Time WGCA All-American Scholar (2016-18)
- GLVC Champion (2016)
- GLVC Player of the Year (2016)
- GLVC Freshman of the Year (2016)
- Four-Time All-GLVC (2016-19)
- Two-Time GLVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year (2017, 2018)
Pilar Echeverria
- WGCA Division II Player of the Year (2019)
- NCAA DII Honda Athlete of the Year Finalist (2019)
- Three-Time WGCA All-America First Team (2017, 2018, 2019)
- Three-Time All-East Region (2017, 2018, 2019)
- Three-Time NCAA DII East Super Regional Champion (2017, 2018, 2019)
- Three-Time GLVC Player of the Year (2017, 2018, 2019)
- Three-Time All-GLVC (2017, 2018, 2019)
- GLVC Champion (2019)
- GLVC Freshman of the Year (2017)
- WGCA All-American Scholar (2017)
Paxton DeHaven
- Two-Time WGCA All-America (2nd-2018, HM-2016)
- Three-Time All-Super Region (2016, 2017, 2018)
- Four-Time WGCA All-American Scholar (2015-18)
- Two-Time GLVC Champion (2017, 2018)
- Four-Time All-GLVC (2015-18)
- GLVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year (2016)
Annika Haynes
- Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award Recipient – GLVC Female Athlete of the Year (2018)
- NCAA Elite 90 Award Winner (2018)
- CoSIDA Academic All-America® of the Year (2018)
- Two-Time CoSIDA Academic All-America® (2017, 2018)
- Three-Time WGCA All-American Scholar (2015, 2017, 2018)
- Two-Time WGCA All-America Honorable Mention (2017, 2018)
- Three-Time All-Super Region (2015, 2017, 2018)
- Two-Time All-GLVC (2015, 2017)
- GLVC Freshman of the Year (2015)
Kylie Raines
- WGCA All-America Second Team (2018)
- WGCA All-East Region (2018)
- Two-Time All-GLVC (2017, 2018)
- GLVC Champion (2016)
Brent Nicoson
- DII Golf Pride WGCA National Coach of the Year (2018)
- DII Golf Pride WGCA East Region Coach of the Year (2018)
- Two-Time NCAA DII National Champions (2015, 2018)
- Coached UIndy Women to NCAA Championship Results of 5th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 3rd in Last Six Years
- Combined for 11 GLVC Men’s and Women’s Coach of the Year Awards (Eight on Women’s Side)
- Guided Hounds to 13 GLVC Men’s and Women’s Championships (Eight on Women’s Side)
- Mentored Last Eight GLVC Women’s Player of the Year and Four of Last Five GLVC Freshman of the Year Recipients
LASTING LEGACY
UIndy’s 2018 NCAA Championship season marked the second time in four years that the Greyhounds hoisted the coveted crown. In 2015, UIndy become the first non-Florida school to capture the DII women's golf title, and in 2018, joined the ranks of only four other teams to have won multiple titles. The program also had one previous individual national champion, though it did not come in 2015. Former UIndy All-American and GLVC Hall of Famer Lyndsay McBride took the national medal in 2009. Keilich, a native of Wetzlar, Germany, finished the tournament as the only player under par. Under the leadership of head coach Brent Nicoson, the Greyhounds’ 2018 team completed a stretch of five consecutive top-five finishes at last five DII Championships, with seniors Paxton DeHaven and Annika Haynes appearing in the lineup on four of those occasions. The 2019 team extended that top-five streak by placing tied for third. Perhaps most remarkable of the 2018 squad was the astonishing individual feats of each of the starting five golfers in the UIndy lineup, as captured in the following video from the 2018 GLVC Enterprise Awards Reception shortly after UIndy earned the national title. Raines and Keilich shared the 2016 GLVC Championship, DeHaven won the 2017 and 2018 GLVC crowns, and Echeverria has gone on to win the 2019 GLVC Championship. Echeverria has won the last three GLVC Player of the Year awards, while Keilich – the 2018 NCAA Champion – earned the league’s top honor in the sport in 2016. However, the league’s top overall award went to Haynes when she was recognized with the Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award as the 2018 GLVC Female Athlete of the Year, just shortly after she garnered the Elite 90 Award for top grade-point average among participants at the NCAA Championship. She would later be named the CoSIDA Academic All-America® of the Year.