Mid-major in name only, Charlotte enters NCAA regionals as top-20 team

It was a moment that could’ve derailed Charlotte’s season.

The 49ers were coming down the stretch at the Hayt Invitational in early March and leading Auburn, now the top-ranked team in the country, by a few shots with their best player, Justin Matthews, standing with the rest of the penultimate group on the 17th tee. But Matthews proceeded to hit three tee balls out of play and score a sextuple-bogey 10 on the hole, and Charlotte would eventually lose to the Tigers by five.

In the immediate aftermath, Charlotte head coach Ryan Cabbage would defend Matthews, saying, “We wouldn’t have been in the position we were in without him.”

Two months later, Cabbage is thrilled with how his players have responded.

Charlotte, ranked 19th in the country entering NCAA regionals, isn’t just one of the top mid-majors this season but arguably among the best in recent years. The 49ers are coming off their second straight American Athletic Conference title, which marked their first win of this season, though they’ve challenged themselves with a tough schedule that has seen them in final groups with NCAA title contenders such as Auburn, Virginia and LSU.

“We did not talk about it a whole lot,” Cabbage said of his squad’s Hayt finish. “How our guys viewed it was that they got themselves in a position to win and it didn’t work out that day, but hey, we’ll just pick ourselves up and go from there. We stood toe to toe with Auburn and basically had them on the ropes, and guys made a couple bad swings. But we moved on, and it was intentional that we didn’t make that big of a deal out of it.”

Following the Hayt, Charlotte rattled off three straight top-5s where they didn’t come close to challenging runaway winners Georgia (Linger Longer), Auburn (Mason Rudolph) and Virginia (Lewis Chitengwa) but finished within 11 shots of second on each occasion.

Individually, the 49ers boast all five starters inside the top 170 nationally, including Matthews at No. 74. Matthews, a senior from Ontario, was among four players to finish seventh or better at conference. That group also included junior Daniel Boone, who fired a 10-under 62 in the final round, and Seb Cave, who transferred from UAB prior to last season. Sophomore Chase Cline lost in a playoff, though it technically marked the second time this season he’d tied for first, doing so at the Visit Knoxville Collegiate, his first start of the fall after transferring from Western Carolina.

“That depth and competition from within, that’s the sign of a good team,” Cabbage said. “You better play really good, or you don’t get to go, and we’ve gotten there.”