No Gopher women’s golfer had won a Big Ten individual championship since 1989. No Gopher men’s golfer had ever carded a score under 200 in a 54-hole tournament. Sophomore Bella McCauley and senior Ben Warian changed all that last weekend.

Click the video boxes on this page to watch KSTP Sports’ interviews with Bella McCauley and Ben Warian after their history-making rounds that send them along in the college golf postseason with plenty of momentum

Playing in the Big Ten Conference Tournament, McCauley came from seven shots back and in 18th-place entering the final round to charge up the leaderboard, finishing as part of a three-way tie for the conference title.

McCauley’s (Inver Grove Heights / Simley H.S.) bogey-free, eight-under-par 64 made her the first Gopher since Kate Hughes in 1989 to win a women’s golf conference title. They are the only two conference champions in program history.

Warian (Stillwater / Hill-Murray H.S.) gets his chance to win a conference title this weekend coming off the best 54-hole score in program history – a 15-under-par 198, which gave him a five-shot win over the field at the High Meadows Intercollegiate Tournament in Ohio.

McCauley qualified for the NCAA Regionals. There are six Regional sites, McCauley is the second-seeded player among six competing as individuals at the Auburn University Club in Alabama. Twelve teams and six individuals compete at each Regional.

Per the NCAA: The top five teams (30 teams total) and the low individual not on an advancing team (six individuals total) from each regional site will advance to compete in the national championships to be played May 17-22 at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.

Among her many prior accomplishments, McCauley played in the NCAA Tournament last year, qualified for the U.S. Open as a high school junior, and won a Minnesota High School State Championship by ten strokes as a sophomore competing for Simley High School.

Her younger sister Reece, a current high school senior and two-time state champion (2021, 2023), will join Bella as a Gopher next year.

Warian’s tournament win is the first for a Gopher men’s golfer since Angus Flanagan in 2021. His low-54-hole score also broke Flanagan’s previous record of 200.

Warian’s weekend also included a second-round 63, which had given him the program’s 36-hole scoring record.

The Gophers won the event as a team by nine-strokes, their first tournament win since 2022.

Warian and the Gopher men play in their Big Ten Conference Tournament this weekend at the Scioto Country Club in Arlington, Ohio.