The Bruins won a third of their stroke play events last season, defeating their crosstown rivals in the process and ultimately staying within the nation’s best five through the latter half of the year.

This season, however, they’ve managed just one victory, spending much of the year on the doorstep of the top 25.

Even still, though the details changed, both seasons landed identical results: a shot at the national title.

No. 5 seed UCLA women’s golf placed fifth at the NCAA Charlottesville Regional – the last team to advance past the cut line with a 17-over 869 – securing a place in the NCAA championship. Even qualifying for the event, played Monday to Wednesday in Charlottesville, Virginia, was no sure thing for this year’s Bruins.

“I didn’t expect midseason that we would be here and have this opportunity to head to the championship again,” said coach Alicia Um Holmes. “So really excited and super happy.”

UCLA narrowly made regionals, with its seventh-place finish at the Big Ten championships narrowly giving the team the over-.500 head-to-head record it needed to secure a place at Charlottesville.

“Going into the tournament, we were kind of the underdogs,” said freshman Angela Liu.

Tournament rankings may have reflected that sentiment. All the finishers ahead of UCLA in Charlottesville were ranked, with No. 4 South Carolina, No. 16 Ole Miss, No. 11 Virginia and No. 21 Florida taking spots one through four, respectively.

However, prior to the third round, the Bruins were poised to finish second. The team’s 16-over finish Wednesday contributed to all but one of its strokes over par and dropped it to fifth place.

Um Holmes and freshman Maye Huang both said the team’s late slump was due to a drop-off in birdies. On the last day, the Bruins found only eight, compared to a combined 28 across the first two days.

Liu and Huang drove the team’s scoring all three days, finishing with an eighth place 1-over 214 and an 18th place 4-over 217, respectively. The two are both in their first years of collegiate golf.

“I was really happy to see them step up,” Um Holmes said. “We definitely needed it for the team. For them individually to have that under their belt and build some confidence has been great.”

Beyond the freshmen, senior Natalie Vo carded a 7-over 220 and junior Meghan Royal brought a 16-over 229. Freshman Francesca Fiorellini subbed in for senior Tiffany Le after the first two rounds, with the pair contributing a combined 13-over 226.

Liu said the team was advantaged by the long distances off the tee and narrow-playing fairways, which she said the Bruins’ ball-striking abilities helped tackle. However, Um Holmes added that back-to-back cross-country trips for the Big Ten tournament and regionals were added factors the team had to overcome.

Perhaps fortunately for UCLA, the national championships should not provide such an issue. The event will be played May 16 to May 21 in Carlsbad, California, a course much closer to home, especially for Carlsbad local Royal.

Maye said the boost the team gained from its success at regionals would help push it forward next week – at the most important event of the year.

“It definitely gives us the confidence to keep going,” Maye said. “We’ve already been in these kinds of positions before.”