EVANS, Ga. – When Kiara Romero offered up a ticket to Saturday’s final round of the Augusta National Women’s Amateur to her Oregon head coach Derek Radley, she asked Radley, “If I’m in the mix, want to come watch me finish second again?”

Romero, of course, was adding levity to what’s been a frustrating run of runners-up – five in her last six events.

It’s not the easiest feeling, Romero says, but she finds solace in who she’s lost to, and how. Just last week, for example, Auburn’s Anna Davis, one of Romero’s best friends, fired one of the best college rounds in recent years, a bogey-free 64 at Colonial to beat Romero by one at the Charles Schwab Women’s Collegiate. Romero closed in 67 and finished three shots ahead of third.

“It definitely does eat at her,” said Romero’s older sister, Kaleiya, who is also Oregon’s graduate assistant. “I know she really wants a win, but she has to stay patient. I walked the last five holes at Colonial, and every shot she hit was perfect, but Anna shot 6 under, so what can you do? She’s not losing tournaments; she’s playing well and someone just gets her.

“Hopefully Saturday will be a different story.”

If Kiara Romero is going to buck the trend, she’ll have to go through the defending champion. While Romero sits at 9 under after rounds of 67-68, she’s tied for the lead with Florida State junior Lottie Woad, who followed an opening 65 with a second-round 70 on Thursday.

Romero was flawless for much of the day, birdieing four of her first 12 holes. But a lengthy wait on the par-4 fourth green caused her to briefly lose focus, just not before it led to a double bogey that potentially could’ve been a momentum killer. After all, it was only a year ago at this tournament that Romero raced out to a 4-under start through nine holes, only to double Nos. 17 and 18 (her eighth and ninth holes) in her second round and card a cut-missing 78.

“She made those doubles, and it carried on for like six holes, and she never got it back,” said Romero’s dad, Rick.

Added Kiara: “I think I was just kind of pushing too much into the thought of me winning the tournament.”

But Rick Romero notes that Kiara’s maturation this past year has been palpable – and it showed Thursday as she shrugged off a bogey on the next hole, the par-4 fifth, to birdie each of her final three holes to earn a spot in Saturday’s final pairing.

“I feel like this week I've been like the happiest I've ever been on the course,” Kiara said. “If you see me last year making a double, I'm definitely not happy. I'm definitely not looking around smiling at anyone. Today was a lot different. I was really proud of myself for the way I handled it.”

Kaleiya deserves some credit, too. The 23-year-old, who played collegiately at Pepperdine, is working toward her Master’s degree in applied behavior. She plans to turn professional later this year and enter Q-School, but after her playing career is over, she aspires to be a mental performance coach. Part of Kaleiya’s job is to keep the mood positive, so after Kiara’s double, Kaleiya simply said, “Let it go and move on.”

When Kaleiya, who first caddied for Kiara at the U.S. Kids Golf World Championships at Pinehurst, was asked to carry the bag this week, the initial plan was for Kiara to dump her for a local caddie if she made it to Saturday. Now, though, Kiara is hesitant to change what’s working, even if Kaleiya will be seeing Augusta National for the first time when she walks the practice round with a local on Friday.

“Unless I do something wrong tomorrow, I think we’re good,” Kaleiya said.

Added Rick: “There’s no one I’d rather have on her bag than her sister. She’s going to encourage her, keep her calm, keep it funny; I’ve seen her laugh more this tournament than I’ve ever seen her laugh.”

Woad will keep her winning caddie from last year, Steve Robinson, who is the performance coach for England golf. It was Robinson who delivered a pep talk to Woad after a three-putt bogey at Augusta National’s par-5 13th that dropped her two shots back of clubhouse leader Bailey Shoemaker, who had just set the tournament record with a 6-under 66. “Nothing that you can print,” Robinson said last year when asked to reveal what he said. But Robinson’s kick in the butt helped spur Woad on to birdie three of her last four holes.

Like Romero, Woad has been denied several trophies of late, mainly by Florida State teammate Mirabel Ting, who has won five of six events this season. Woad, though, hasn’t finished worse than third in eight starts this season, and she hasn’t finished outside the top 10 in a non-pro tournament since the 2023 European Ladies Amateur.

Amy Bond, the Seminoles’ head coach, calls Woad the best player under pressure that she’s ever seen. Woad backs that up by saying she rarely feels many nerves.

This Saturday will likely be no different.

“I had the lead and then lost it,” Woad said of last year’s ANWA win. “Tomorrow if that happens again, then I'd know that I've come back from there before.”

Only a shot behind Woad and Romero are Spaniards Carla Bernat of Kansas State and Andrea Revuelta of Stanford, plus Stanford junior Megha Ganne, who is competing in her fifth ANWA.

Ganne missed the cut in each of her first two appearances in this tournament, the second of which ended in tears – and an inopportune photo to commemorate the misery.

“I'd like to say not that long, but it stuck with me for a pretty long time,” said Ganne, who didn’t fully shake that memory until tying for ninth at her next ANWA, two years ago.

Ganne dreamed on Tuesday night that she’d open this week’s tournament in 61, and she nearly equaled that with a 9-under 63 on Wednesday. Following that record round was always going to be a tall task, but Ganne tried to create momentum where she could.

She bogeyed two of her first four holes, and she added two more dropped shots on Nos. 13 and 14, the latter of which included a fortunate break after her second shot settled into a bush. But because the bush was a located in a circle of foliage surrounded by cart path, she was granted free relief, so even though she’d later miss a shortie, it only resulted in bogey.

Facing a 30-footer for birdie at the par-5 18th, Ganne called her shot to caddie Brooke Riley, Stanford’s assistant who jumped on the bag last minute after an injury to Ganne’s original caddie last weekend.

“I don't abuse the power of saying that that often, but I was like this is definitely going in,” Ganne said.

Tied for sixth at 7 under is high-school phenom Asterisk Talley, who tied for eighth last year after holing a 5-footer on her 36th hole to make the cut on the number, and Sweden’s Meja Ortengren, who is one of six active Stanford players among the 32 competitors who made this year’s cut.

In all, nine players are within five shots of the lead, including USC’s Jasmine Koo and Ohio State’s Kary Hollenbaugh, each four-time winners since the start of last fall and both T-9.

“I'm really honored to be up there with those names,” Ganne said of this star-studded leaderboard. “Lottie, she's world No. 1 for a reason. The rest of the top of the board looks like the rest of our college tournaments, so this really is a premier event. I think a lot of the big names are coming to the top of the board, which is, I think, really exciting for us players to battle it out on Saturday.”

It’s a board that could easily relegate Romero to first bridesmaid yet again.

But at the same time, if Radley is right, if “the big one is coming" for his standout sophomore, what a victory it would be.