Chargers running back Austin Ekeler, who had requested a trade in the off-season, is now staying in Los Angeles with close to $2 million in incentives added to this deal this season, a source told ESPN's Adam Schefter.

Ekeler, who recently turned 28, will be a free agent after this season.

Coach Brandon Staley had said that he expected Ekeler to attend the team's mandatory minicamp, which begins June 13.

Ekeler, who had an NFL-best 18 touchdowns running and receiving in 2022, was scheduled to earn $6.25 million in the fourth and final season of a $24.5 million extension.

Last season, Ekeler played a pivotal role in the Chargers earning their first playoff berth in four seasons before they were eliminated in a 31-30 wild-card playoff loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

In March, Ekeler told Chris Long on the "Greenlight" podcast that he is "so underpaid right now" and expressed a desire to sign a long-term extension, whether with the Chargers or another team.

He emphasized that he has no ill will toward the Chargers and would like to remain with the organization, which signed him as an undrafted free agent out of Western Colorado in 2017.

Since the Chargers signed Ekeler, he has amassed 63 touchdowns, joining Hall of Famer Lenny Moore as the only players in NFL history to record at least 25 rushing and 25 receiving touchdowns in their first six seasons.

FOR MONTHS, BROWN University head baseball coach Grant Achilles was asked when Olivia Pichardo might take the field and become the first woman to play in Division I. National media attended every game hoping to catch a glimpse of history -- an unusual amount of attention for a baseball team typically covered by the student newspaper.

Pichardo, an outfielder and a pitcher who has played baseball since she was 5, had shined on stages from Little League to PONY baseball to MLB's Trailblazer Series and all the way to a stint with the USA Baseball Women's National Team in 2022. But when it was announced that she had made the Brown Bears as a walk-on, interest had perhaps never been higher.

On March 18, Pichardo pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth inning of a 10-1 Brown loss to the Bryant University Bulldogs in Providence, Rhode Island. On a first-pitch fastball from Bryant righty M.T. Morrissey, Pichardo grounded out sharply to first base. The at-bat would be her only appearance of her freshman season. The moment was indeed historic, but the lone at-bat also fueled Pichardo's critics, who questioned whether her addition to the team amounted to a publicity stunt.

"The challenge was being able to stay focused and stay true with some of the outside noise and distractions and stay supportive of each other throughout," Achilles said he told Pichardo and her teammates before Pichardo's appearance. "Just because somebody has access to a keyboard or a social media account doesn't mean that they're somebody you should listen to."

Pichardo has been drowning out critics just like those for her entire life: "Random chirps from parents or players in the stands or things that I've been told that people have said about me," she said in an interview before the season. "It just bounces off of me -- which is not an invitation for anyone to test."

For most 18-year-olds, an Ivy League course load would be overwhelming enough. Add to that the growing pains that come with adjusting to Division I baseball. And to top it all off, Pichardo faces increased scrutiny due to her unprecedented success as a woman breaking barriers. All of this while trying to improve on the baseball field and earn more playing time next season.

"I feel like I've already had my midlife crisis through baseball," Pichardo said. "It's not a game like basketball where you can make up for a mistake by scoring another basket. You need to wait your turn for a chance to redeem yourself, keep a short-term memory, move past things and try not to let it be in the back of your mind."

FOR AS LONG as the Pichardos can remember, the most frequent question about Olivia on the diamond was never about her love for the sport, her ambitions on the field or her favorite players.

When are you going to switch to softball?

When Max Pichardo started Olivia out on the Elmjack baseball fields by LaGuardia Airport in Astoria, Queens, softball wasn't a thought in his mind. Max grew up in the Dominican Republic, and for him, baseball was everything. With his wife, Monita, who is Chinese American, working as a recruiter for the finance and insurance corporation AIG, Max focused his time as a full-time stay-at-home dad, raising Olivia and her sister, Nirvana. They gravitated toward playing with Batman and Superman action figures over Barbie dolls.

As a kid, Olivia often picked up the family's Spider-Man baseball bat over other toys. That's part of what led Max to sign up Olivia for Little League. During the summers, they often skipped lunch to keep playing, practicing everything from hitting to fielding to pitching. He signed on as a coach in the nearby Forest Hills youth baseball league, but by the end of Olivia's first season, questions had already started popping up about her future. When one woman helping run the league pushed Max to switch Olivia to softball, he resisted.

"I took a lot of issues with another adult trying to tell my kid what to do," Max said. "For somebody who doesn't know my kid to presume they know what's best to do or based on some gender roles society has tried to shape -- get out of my face with that."

The questions kept popping up from level to level. As the jump from Little League to PONY Baseball loomed, people doubted Olivia's ability, noting that the boys would begin going through puberty. The sentiment from others often carried a tone of It's been a good ride; I hope you enjoyed it. When she continued playing PONY Baseball and succeeding, others voiced concerns about whether Olivia could keep up in high school baseball.

"People kept moving the goalposts about what they were saying about a girl playing baseball," Max said.

As Olivia got older, the infrastructure around women's baseball grew. She participated in the Trailblazer Series, a tournament launched by MLB and USA Baseball in 2017 for girls, and the MLB GRIT program, designed for girls 18 and younger to showcase their abilities and receive pro evaluation from scouts. Justine Siegal -- who became the first woman coach employed by an MLB team in 2015 for the Oakland Athletics -- met a 14-year-old Pichardo through these programs. Pichardo's focus on the field and where her family envisioned her baseball career taking her became clear very quickly.

"The combination of Olivia's composure, her presence, the confidence she has and how hard she worked in actively engaging within school, it was clearly a winning combination," Siegal said.

By seventh grade, Pichardo made the high school boys' varsity team, and in 2018, 2019 and 2021, MLB invited her to participate in the Breakthrough Series, a program established for developing young players, both male and female. In July 2022, Pichardo played with the USA Baseball Women's National Team as a pitcher and an outfielder alongside Kelsie Whitmore, the first woman to play in the Atlantic League.

As her college search began in the summer of 2021, Pichardo was looking for a school that met the standards of a 5.2 high school GPA where she might also be able to play ball.

"Olivia wasn't going to sacrifice her academics to find a fit to play baseball," said Elizabeth Benn, who met Pichardo while she completed a 2022 internship with the New York Mets. Benn is the Mets' director of major league operations, the highest ranking woman baseball operations employee in franchise history. "She was going to end up at a D-I school or an Ivy League school, but we needed to see if a coach would be receptive to having her on the team."

In 2021, Pichardo enrolled in baseball camps for Harvard, Columbia and Princeton, hoping to get in front of coaches. Again, she and her father heard questions about whether she would be able to compete with men hoping to play Division I baseball. The continued pushback led her father to stream college baseball regularly, hoping to scope out the potential competition for a roster spot.

"I saw people dropping fly balls and missing cutoff throws," Max Pichardo said. "People make it seem like it's a sport made for the gods, but I see kids playing baseball."

During her senior year in high school, Olivia Pichardo made contact with Brown's coaching staff about trying to walk on to the team; and when she was accepted last spring, Coach Achilles and Pichardo started a longer conversation about what that might look like. After a tryout Achilles called "the most complete" he has seen as a head coach, Pichardo became the first woman to make a Division I baseball roster.

"I wasn't telling myself the odds," Pichardo said. "I was just telling myself that I was going to make the team. I wasn't going to let doubt creep into my mind."

She quickly proved to teammates she could keep up with them, swinging on time to 90 mph fastballs during the team's first intrasquad game and showing off the zip of her throws while playing catch.

"She's not looking for someone to think it's OK to not throw as hard or run as fast," her father said. "She just wants someone to treat her like a person."

THOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH teammates on the Bears were crucial to Pichardo in her first season. During an intrasquad game early in the spring, Pichardo made an error in the outfield, the type of physical mistake that happens at times. But then it snowballed. Senior outfielder Derian Morphew -- a regular throwing partner of Pichardo -- noticed the physical mistake started turning into mental errors, one bleeding into another.

"You could see how much pressure she puts on herself," Morphew said. "I told her a couple of times, don't put too much pressure on yourself. There's a lot of attention on you and a lot of negative feedback, but the biggest thing is to try to block it out and keep improving."

That negativity can reach uncontrollable levels. When the Boston Red Sox invited Pichardo to throw the first pitch at Fenway Park on Asian American Pacific Islander Night on May 3, her teammates encouraged her to throw as hard as she could and not think about getting the ball over the plate. When she did just that, the ball nearly skipped past utility infielder Rob Refsnyder, and it ended up in the right-handed batter's box. Video of the pitch went viral on Twitter, with criticism getting so hostile that NESN television turned off replies for the tweet.

"The people that are skeptical are usually people that don't even play baseball or never made it to this level," Morphew said. "I just laugh it off because the people that I play with in summer ball from other Division I programs think it's awesome for her, how she must be the real deal."

Last week, in between study sessions for her final exams, Pichardo and Achilles met to recap her freshman campaign. Brown's season did not go as anticipated, finishing 9-12 within the conference and failing to qualify for this past weekend's Ivy League tournament. Pichardo's single in-game appearance fell short of her own expectations too, according to Achilles.

"She expects perfection with what she can control," Achilles said. "It's probably to a fault at that point where she can probably take a step away and revisit things the next day."

Her teammates saw her growth firsthand. Morphew noticed the strides she made in her confidence both at the plate and in the field.

"She became more relaxed, you could just see it," Morphew said. "Her throwing, her stance at the plate. She looked like a more confident baseball player by the end of it."

Achilles did not commit to giving Pichardo more playing time in 2024, but he points out that her freshman season aligned with the typical experience of a walk-on. He said the things Pichardo needs to improve -- increased awareness on the offensive and defensive side of the game, more consistency through her swing and continuing to add strength in the weight room -- are mostly the same as the team's other freshmen. And when it comes to the critics who point to her roster spot as a stunt, he dismisses them.

"If they want to speak about it one way or the other, they can show up to more of our practices and games to watch what actually goes on," Achilles said. "It's really beyond ludicrous some of the things people who have no business commenting on, stuff they have no idea about."

Her teammates remind Pichardo that backlash she faces often has nothing to do with baseball.

"You see the comments, and we remind her that she's the first female to ever play the game in Division I baseball," Morphew said. "Brush off all of the negativity, it does not matter, because you are the first one to do it. And that says something."

At the end of the season, Achilles reminded Pichardo of the progress she made during her first campaign, reminding her she is more than just a headline or a figurehead or an on-field trailblazer.

"You're not a video game," Achilles said. "The transition is hard, and you're a person too. You're not valued by just your performance. That's such a transactional way to look at life. We want to win, we want our players to perform at their highest, but they're more than who they are between the white lines."

Pichardo took a deep breath and smiled.

"You're right," Pichardo said. "It's not going to be perfect."

It's in these moments she reminds herself why she loves the sport that helped put her in a position for ever-increasing scrutiny.

"Your attitude really does matter," Pichardo said. "You can't throw a fit after you strike out. Sometimes you feel like you're the best baseball player to ever exist. Everyone hits a point where you hit a wall, and it seems like you're swinging at strikes but not making much contact. You just need to fix your attitude and keep going."

Former world number one Simona Halep has accused tennis' doping authority of "publicly stating one thing while privately doing another" by requesting a further delay to her hearing.

The Romanian, 31, has been suspended since October after testing positive for a banned substance at the US Open.

The second charge is separate to the one for which she is already suspended.

In a statement on Twitter, 2019 Wimbledon champion Halep said the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) had requested a third delay.

Halep, who denies the charges, said she was "extremely shocked and disappointed by the ITIA's attitude".

"While the ITIA via their representative Nicole Sapstead was publicly stating three days ago that the ITIA 'has remained committed to engaging Mrs Halep in an empathetic, efficient and timely manner', they were at the same time officially requesting the tribunal to delay my hearing... for the third time," Halep said.

"The ITIA publicly states one thing while privately doing another, I have repeatedly asked for my hearing and the ITIA has repeatedly sought to delay it.

"When is it going to stop? I ask the question once again. I am entitled to a quick hearing. Acting this way is contrary to my rights."

Halep's coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said the ITIA had played a "double game" from "day one".

An ITIA spokesperson said: "We have proposed that both charges are heard together to avoid multiple hearings. To do this, we wish to provide all parties (including the independent tribunal) sufficient time to consider the significant materials associated with the latest charge.

"Ultimately it is a decision for the independent tribunal. Ms Halep also has the opportunity to make her representations to them."

Halep's suspension last year was imposed after she tested positive for roxadustat, an anti-anaemia drug which stimulates the production of red blood cells in the body. She denies knowingly taking the banned substance.

The investigations into failed tests by the ITIA are often complex, particularly when a player denies taking a substance knowingly.

It is not uncommon for cases to take months to be resolved.

In such cases, a player can produce evidence to disprove or mitigate the failed test. This would bring further investigation and testing by the ITIA, leading to the process being further extended.

There is one match that will receive extra scrutiny when the French Open order of play is released each evening.

And given the criticism the Madrid Open organisers received this month for not allowing the women's doubles finalists to make presentation speeches, equality in scheduling is extremely topical.

The French Open tournament director is former world number one Amelie Mauresmo, but she says she cannot promise there will be an equal share of men's and women's matches in the night sessions this year.

Mauresmo argued 12 months ago that the men's matches had more "appeal" and that it was hard to find enough stars or compelling match-ups in the women's draw.

World number one Iga Swiatek found those comments "a little bit disappointing and surprising" and two-time Grand Slam champion Mauresmo, in her first year as tournament director, later apologised.

"To be honest, I'm not able right now to tell you anything about numbers of men's or women's matches," Mauresmo told BBC Sport at Roland Garros last month.

"I think we have to wait for the draws first, and for the head-to-head every day because that is really what is pushing us to make a choice - to know which match is going to be the match of the day."

Unlike the Australian Open and US Open, which schedule two night-session matches every day, the French Open has just one. Mauresmo says that complicates matters and points out there is equal billing if you consider the Centre Court programme as a whole.

"What we see on this [Philippe] Chatrier Court is we have four matches. We know for sure we have two men's, two women's. The one [night] match makes it quite impossible to satisfy everyone in a way, so we like to see it as one."

Women's Tennis Association (WTA) chief executive Steve Simon believes having women's matches in the night session at all tournaments is "very, very critical" in the fight for equal prize money all year round.

"At the end of the day, you are what you say you are," he told the BBC in Indian Wells in March.

"Unless you are showing the product in your primetime windows, you are telling the consumer what the value is. So it is very, very important that there is a mixture between the men and the women in the primetime spots."

Mauresmo says in response: "I understand, because he feels that the 8.30 match is better than the day matches.

"It's primetime in Europe but we are an international event as well so the requests we have from TV are not only from Europe. We have demands from the US as well so I just want to see what's coming and every day we're going to try and make the best decision possible - that's the only thing I can commit to."

Having a French world number five in Caroline Garcia should help Mauresmo, who feels there are more "stars" in the women's game 12 months on.

"I think so. I think people get to know the players better," she says.

"Iga [Swiatek] winning last year for the second time and also winning the US Open. Also the head-to-heads are key."

The first point of the night-session matches has been brought forward by half an hour to 20:30 local time (19:30 BST). That will potentially allow players to enjoy better, warmer conditions and prevent spectators being stranded without public transport after a late finish.

Fans were wrapping themselves in blankets during last year's quarter-final between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic which finished at 01:15 - long after the final metro had left.

A roof will be in position over the Suzanne Lenglen Court in time for the 2024 championships as Roland Garros prepares to stage both tennis and boxing at next year's Paris Olympics. But there are currently no plans for a second night session because of the extra volume of people that would bring to the site.

"I feel better, I feel more relaxed. I know more what is coming and having this experience of last year I'm much better prepared," Mauresmo says of her second year in the tournament director's chair.

"People have to come into this stadium, wanting to have a special day, wanting to feel some emotion, wanting to live a full life, to have quite a unique day.

"That's why we are asking all the people who are going to welcome all the crowd to be smiling all the time and be very friendly and very welcoming.

"On top of that, it's tradition and modernity. We have to have that in Roland Garros."

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov left the first period of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday night with a lower-body injury.

He was listed by the team as questionable but did not return in the Panthers' 1-0 win.

Coach Paul Maurice did not have an update on Barkov's status after the victory.

Barkov missed the final 7:04 of the opening frame. He exited to the Panthers' dressing room after taking a hip check from Carolina forward Jack Drury on his last recorded shift. The play appeared innocuous at the time but could have caused some measure of discomfort for Barkov.

The Panthers -- now up 3-0 in the series -- entered the second period without one of their top centers. Barkov has four goals and 12 points in 14 postseason games and is one of the club's top faceoff forwards. He had two goals and an assist in the first two games of this series.

In Barkov's absence, Eetu Luostarinen moved up to center Florida's top line.

Game 4 is on Wednesday.

SUNRISE, Fla. -- The Carolina Hurricanes are on the ropes after dropping Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Florida Panthers 1-0 on Monday.

A sensational 32-save performance from Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky -- in the first postseason shutout of his career -- did most of the damage in Carolina's loss, which put the Hurricanes in a 3-0 hole. Still, the defeat didn't come without some controversy.

The Hurricanes trailed 1-0 late in the third period when forward Sam Reinhart -- who scored the game's only goal on a second-period power play -- appeared to high stick Carolina defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere in the face. That was right before Panthers defenseman Marc Staal put a puck in Carolina's empty net that would have given the Panthers a 2-0 lead with less than two minutes remaining in regulation.

Upon review, it was judged that a whistle blew before Staal's shot entered the net, but there was no penalty assessed on Reinhart for the play on Gostisbehere. Play continued, and Carolina ultimately recorded its third straight loss.

Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said after the game he wasn't thrilled with the lack of a call going in Carolina's favor.

"It's tough for me. I could go on all day on that," he said. "We got [called for] three knickknack penalties on sticks to the hand. ... Especially when they stop the play [after Gostisbehere was hit]. I don't understand that. You stop it because you saw a high stick. Why are you stopping the play then? I don't know. No explanation, just move on."

That's all the Hurricanes can do. Brind'Amour lamented that Carolina didn't convert its lone power play of the game, and its general struggles scoring on Bobrovsky in the series. Through three games, Hurricanes forwards have failed to produce one even-strength goal, and Carolina has been outscored 6-3.

"How are you not frustrated?" Brind'Amour said. "There's times when you lose and you're frustrated because you got beat, but if feels like we're losing but we're not really getting beat, and that's where it gets frustrating."

Florida has now won 10 of its past 11 playoff games and can advance to the franchise's first Stanley Cup Final since 1996 with a win over Carolina in Game 4 on Wednesday.

The Panthers came through with Monday's victory despite being short-handed. Captain Aleksander Barkov left with 7:04 to play in the first period after what looked like an innocuous hip check from Hurricanes forward Jack Drury. He was ruled questionable to return with a lower-body injury.

Florida coach Paul Maurice provided no update on Barkov's status after the game.

Losing Barkov would pose a challenge. The team's top center had four goals and 12 points in 14 postseason tilts before Game 3. The All-Star is also one of the Panthers' best faceoff forwards. He had two goals and an assist in the first two games against Carolina.

In Barkov's absence, Eetu Luostarinen moved up to center Florida's top line. The Panthers had trouble generating much offense in the second and third periods, putting only 17 shots total -- and seven through the final 40 minutes -- on Carolina netminder Frederik Andersen and going 1-for-4 on their power-play chances.

If Bobrovsky continues to stone Carolina the way he has, though, it might not matter how the Panthers line up offensively. Bobrovsky has a .978 save percentage in the series thus far, and it will take a full team effort from Carolina in Game 4 on Wednesday to stay alive and take the matchup back to the Canes' home ice.

"It's been three games," Brind'Amour said. "You can't do much more. We like how we're playing, clearly. It's just we've got to find a way to put one in."

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Stanford’s Rose Zhang shot a bogey-free, 4-under 68 on Monday to become the first women’s golfer to win consecutive national titles and tie the NCAA record for wins in a season.

It’s the latest triumph for Zhang, who had already swept the most important amateur titles in women’s golf. Zhang, who turns 20 on Wednesday, won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 2020, the U.S. Girls’ Junior in 2021 and the Augusta National Women’s Amateur this April.

Leading by one after San Jose State’s Lucia Lopez-Ortega made consecutive bogeys, Zhang saved par on Grayhawk Golf Club’s par-4 17th hole with a delicate chip and tapped in for par on No. 18 to become the first woman to win multiple national titles.

Zhang finished at 10 under to match former Arizona player and LPGA Hall of Famer Lorena Ochoa’s NCAA records for wins in a season (eight) and career (12). Her 12 wins breaks the Stanford record for men or women, held by Tiger Woods and three others.

Zhang helped Stanford secure the top seed heading into Tuesday’s match play in its bid to win consecutive national titles.

Lopez-Ortega closed out her round with a birdie to shoot 71. She tied for second at 9 under with Southern California’s Catherine Park, who missed a short birdie putt on the par-5 18th that would have tied her with Zhang.

Zhang, who’s from Irvine, California, had a record-breaking freshman season, setting the NCAA’s single-season scoring mark at 69.68 while winning individual and team championships. She has been even better this season, arriving in the desert with a 68.70 scoring average.

Zhang’s win is her eighth in 10 starts as a sophomore, including the Pac-12 Championships and the NCAA Pullman Regional.

Zhang made up a four-shot deficit quickly on Park, the overnight leader, by turning the front nine in 3-under 33 at Grayhawk’s Raptor Course. Zhang rolled in a birdie on the par-5 11th to reach 10 under, but Lopez-Ortega tied her with a birdie on the par-3 fifth after starting on the front nine.

Starting on No. 10, Lopez-Ortega offset a bogey on the par-5 11th with a birdie on No. 14 and a two-putt birdie on the par-5 18th. The sophomore from Madrid tied Zhang at 10 under with a birdie on the par-3 fifth hole, but had bogeys on Nos. 7 and 8 before the closing birdie.

Park got better as the season progressed, tying for second at the Silverado Showdown and tying for third at the Pac-12 Championships. She took a two-shot lead into the final round at Grayhawk by tying the NCAA record with a 64 in the second round and a 71 on Sunday.

Park sandwiched two birdies around a bogey on the short par-4 sixth hole in the final individual round, then had a two-putt birdie on the par-5 seventh. She saved par when a fast-running chip on the par-3 eighth hit the flagstick, but made bogey on the par-4 ninth.

Park pushed her lead back to two with a curling putt on the par-4 12th, but a three-putt down a steep slope on the par-4 15th dropped her a shot behind when Zhang dropped in a birdie at No. 11.

Park hit a good chip shot from just short of the 18th hole, but pushed the birdie putt right.

Defending champion Stanford qualified as the No. 1 seed into the quarterfinals at the NCAA DI Women's Golf Championship on Monday.

The Cardinal finished a combined 19 under, followed by Texas (-14) and Wake Forest (-13) as the only teams to finish below par.

South Carolina (+1), Southern California (+2), Florida State (+3), Texas A&M (+4) and Pepperdine (+8) rounded out the eight qualifying teams.

Pepperdine snagged the final quarterfinals spot thanks to long birdie putts from Reese Guzman (40 ft.) and Lion Higo (30 ft.). It's the first time the Waves have ever qualified for match play. They will face top-ranked Stanford in the quarterfinals. Last month, they tied the Cardinal at the Silicon Valley Showcase.

The championship will now transition from stroke play to match play, starting with Tuesday morning's quarterfinals.

Quarterfinal matchups

• No. 1 Stanford vs. No. 8 Pepperdine
• No. 4 South Carolina vs. No. 5 Southern California
• No. 3 Wake Forest vs. No. 6 Florida State
• No. 2 Texas vs. No. 7 Texas A&M

How to watch

All times ET

Tuesday

Noon-2:30PM (GC/Peacock): NCAA DI Women’s Golf Championships, Quarterfinals (NCAA)

5-9PM (GC/Peacock): NCAA DI Women’s Golf Championships, Semifinals (NCAA)

Wednesday

5-9PM (GC/Peacock): NCAA DI Women’s Golf Championships, Finals (NCAA)

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Pepperdine is into match play at the NCAA Division I Women’s Golf Championship for the first time in school history.

The Waves’ reward: a quarterfinal date Tuesday with top-ranked Stanford.

It would be easy to consider it a David-versus-Goliath matchup, the reigning NCAA champions against a match-play newbie. But the Waves, ranked No. 16 in the country, are no pushovers. In fact, just last month Pepperdine tied Stanford for the team title at the Silicon Valley Showcase.

“We were right there with the best team in the country,” Pepperdine head coach Laurie Gibbs said.

Gibbs is now in her third decade at this program’s helm, so she knows confidence when she sees it – and this team has boatloads. That self-belief was on full display Monday at Grayhawk, as the Waves began the day in ninth place, a shot outside of the top 8, before shooting 2 over alongside Texas A&M and Arizona, the latter of which Pepperdine bumped out of match play with a gutsy finish.

Finishing on a more difficult front nine, the Waves’ four counters played that closing stretch in 1 under, and senior Reese Guzman, the team’s captain who had been in and out of the lineup since earning first-team All-West Coast Conference honors as a sophomore, helped lead the charge. Guzman birdied two of her final three holes, holing a difficult, downhill 20-footer at the par-5 seventh and another clutch mid-range putt at the par-4 finishing hole that punctuated what ended up being a three-shot final advantage over Arizona and New Mexico, who finished tied for ninth.

“She found her way, and she’s doing great,” Gibbs said of Guzman, who played as an individual at the Silicon Valley event and missed two events entirely this spring. “She’s grown so much, and now, she’s amazing.”

While Guzman’s resurgence has been important, this Pepperdine squad is still led by junior Lion Higo and freshman Jeneath Wong, who are ranked No. 20 and No. 44 in Golfstat, respectively. In other words, Gibbs has plenty of weapons at her disposal to throw out against the likes of Rose Zhang and Megha Ganne.

The Waves know it – and after last month, Stanford likely does, too.

“This team wants to win, and they’re not afraid of winning,” Gibbs said. “Getting them to that point where they feel comfortable in this position – and I think that’s why we finished so strong. … They’ve been really confident, and we believe that we can do it. We want to show everyone that we have something special.”

What better way than to knock Stanford from its throne.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Rose Zhang was in unfamiliar territory as she began Monday’s final round of the NCAA Division I Women’s Championship. Typically, the Stanford sophomore enters these types of moments with the lead – sometimes a commanding lead – before often switching to cruise control down the stretch. This time, though, she was the chaser, four shots back of USC freshman Catherine Park.

Different fashion, same result.

Zhang caught Park, passed her, then calmly held on for a one-shot victory as the 19-year-old superstar became the first women's player to ever win consecutive NCAA individual titles. Zhang also tied Lorena Ochoa’s NCAA record for wins in a single season with eight – just two of those were come-from-behind triumphs.

“I can't believe that, I still don't know what is going on,” Zhang said about a half-hour after her latest shining moment. “And it's hard to process because when you're chasing from behind, you really don't know what is happening until everything's completed, until everything's done. … I genuinely just – I can't believe this is all happening, and it's just, it's just simple to say that I'm super grateful.”

Despite her dominating year, which has included Pac-12 and NCAA regional titles, a NCAA-record 68.7 scoring average and her grand-slam-completing Augusta National Women’s Amateur victory in April, Zhang arrived at Grayhawk feeling a little unsure of herself. It showed early as she carded three bogeys and shot even par in the opening round. She rebounded with a 5-under 67 but dug herself a four-shot hole with a pedestrian – by her standards, of course – 71 in the third round.

Stanford head coach Anne Walker said that during the first 54 holes, she’d seen Zhang in “places that I don’t normally see Rose Zhang,” and so on Monday morning, before Zhang’s round, she challenged her star player to focus on putting herself in better positions. Zhang agreed.

“I pushed her a little bit … and Rose was fully accountable,” Walker said. “Today she decided that no matter what happened, she would put herself in position. For me, that’s what I saw. I don’t feel like she pushed anything today.”

Added Zhang: “Going into this week, I didn’t have a lot of trust in my game, but this final day was kind of all-in, just go out and try and do my best and put myself in a position where I could potentially move up the leaderboard, and that’s all I was thinking.”

What followed was a bogey-free 68 as Zhang missed just one green in regulation – that was on the par-4 penultimate hole, and Zhang got up and down easily. Before that, as Park succumbed to nerves and lost her speed with the putter, Zhang birdied Nos. 4, 6 and 7 to put the heat on her childhood pal from Irvine, California. When Park three-putted No. 15, Zhang had just birdied No. 11 behind her to go from one shot back to a shot ahead at 10 under. San Jose State’s Lucia Lopez-Ortega would tie Zhang before bogeying two of her final three holes and ending up tied with Park for second.

Not that Zhang knew any of what was happening on the leaderboard. She didn’t look at one all day. It wasn’t until she ripped her drive on the par-5 finishing hole that Zhang was clued in.

Walking off No. 18 tee, Walker turned to Zhang and said, “You know, we’re going to go down there, and you’re going to have a number that’s going to be in play.”

Zhang responded, “Yeah, I know.”

To which Walker quickly added, “And we’re going to lay up.”

Zhang then looked at Walker, confused.

“I was like, Why should I lay up, Coach?” Zhang recalled. “This is clearly 195 [yards], I can get that no problem, just hit it left side, even if I’m in the bunker, it’s perfect. But she was like, none of that.”

That’s when Walker informed Zhang that she had a one-shot lead and par would get the job done. So, Zhang laid up with 9-iron and wedged it to 8 feet.

“And two putts was good enough, so that was the smartest play,” Zhang said. “I’m conserving my energy and thrilling action for tomorrow in match play.”

Yes, Stanford continues its NCAA team title defense in Tuesday morning’s quarterfinals against eighth-seeded Pepperdine. The top-ranked Cardinal will be the overwhelming favorites.

That’s a position Zhang is very familiar with.