A historic season is coming to a close for Florida this weekend.
The No. 5-ranked Gators will hit the links Friday at the Eugene Country Club in Oregon for the NCAA Championship.
The Championship will mark UF’s final tournament of the 2015-16 season, which was its most successful campaign since the 1985-86 squad earned 10 first-place finishes en route to Florida’s last NCAA championship victory.
Now coach Emily Glaser will seek to end UF’s 30-year championship drought.
Twenty three other teams await Florida, of which only five teams are not ranked in the top 25.
The Gators will see familiar faces Friday, including No. 3-ranked Alabama, who claimed first at the Southeastern Conference Championship, leaving UF as runner-up. No. 17-ranked South Carolina, who shares the NCAA Baton Rouge regional title with Florida, will also compete.
The duo of Maria Torres and Karolina Vlckova will return, this time bearing Division I All-Regional Team accolades.
Torres tied for seventh at the Baton Rouge regional, her fifth top-10 finish of the season. The junior carded a 3-under-par final round to finish the tournament at 1 under par and led Florida to its best round in program history.
Vlckova used the final round to propel herself from 11th place to second with a program-record 65 strokes, 7-under-par round.
Alongside the juniors will be Kelly Grassel and Taylor Tomlinson who both finished in 25th place at the regional, marking their seventh and ninth top-25 finishes, respectively.
Rounding out the lineup is freshman Samantha Wagner, who finished the regional inside the top 25. Wagner recovered from a disastrous 8-over-par 72 on the first day, clinching a tie for 22nd place.
While a stacked field and mounting pressure will certainly burden the Gators, the squad will have momentum on their side.
Florida is coming off its first postseason title since 2008 at the Regional Championship.
Karolina Vlckova (right) celebrates with coach Emily Glaser during the 2015 SunTrust Gator Invitational at UF's Mark Bostick Golf Course.
