ROLLA, Mo. – For the first time in over a half century, a golf team representing Missouri S&T will take part in an NCAA Division II championship event as the Miners have been selected to compete at the NCAA Central/Midwest Regional next month in Winona, Minn.

The Miners will be one of 10 teams from the NCAA's Midwest region that will take part in the event at The Bridges Golf Course in Winona beginning on May 11.  The three-day, 54-hole stroke tournament will be contested among the 10 Midwest and 10 Central region teams, with the top three teams and two individuals not affiliated with the top three squads advancing to the championship finals.

Eight additional teams outside of the top three in each region nationwide will also receive berths to the national tournament, which will be determined at the conclusion of the regional tournaments.

Missouri S&T was the third-ranked team in the Midwest region will be joined by fellow Great Lakes Valley Conference members Missouri-St. Louis, McKendree and Maryville in the field.  The top-ranked team in the region was Grand Valley State from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference; Wayne State (Mich.), Davenport and Ferris State from the GLIAC will also be in the regional along with Findlay and Ashland from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.

The Central region representatives will be top-seeded Henderson State, Harding, Southwestern Oklahoma State and Southern Arkansas from the Great American Conference; Northeastern State, Washburn, Central Oklahoma, Missouri Southern and Central Missouri from the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association and Bemidji State, representing the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference.  The Miners have been in tournaments with 11 of the other 19 teams in the field during the 2022-23 season, including all of the Midwest region teams except for Grand Valley State.

The only previous time Missouri S&T competed in an NCAA golf event as a team was in 1969, when the Miners finished 12^th at the national tournament.   The Miners have had individuals compete at the regional and national tournaments, most recently Carl Miltun (Gilbert, AZ/Williams Field) in 2021 and Kent Dinsdale during the 1980s.

This season, the Miners finished second in stroke play at the Great Lakes Valley Conference Championships before losing in the semifinal round of match play to eventual champion McKendree.  Miltun was the medalist at the GLVC Championships, one of three Miners to earn medalist honors during the season along with Gustav Liljedahl (Uppsala, Sweden/Celsiusskolan) and Joe Friedel (St. Peters, MO/Fort Zumwalt South).

S&T won four tournaments that it competed in this season – including one at a different course in Winona during the fall portion of the schedule – and finished among the top three teams in every tournament it competed in during the 2022-23 campaign.