Almquist, Fitzgerald earn co-medalist honors at 99th California State Amateur Championship

JUNE 22 — Scott Almquist of Coto de Caza and Kevin Fitzgerald of Riverside each shot 70-71–141 in stroke-play rounds, to earn co-medalist honors at the 99th California State Amateur Championship at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club and La Jolla Country Club.
Almquist, 45, will be the No. 1 seed in tomorrow’s match play competition, which will pit him against the No. 32 seed Sam Yi of Northridge.
Fitzgerald, 22, is No. 2 seed and will tee off against Robert Funk, No. 31 seed, of Canyon Lake. Both Funk and Yi qualified in a 10-for-3 playoff for the final spots.
“I didn’t putt well today, and three-putted on 17 because I was being aggressive,” said Almquist after his medalist status was final. “All I wanted to do was make match play, but I don’t have any expectations on how I’ll finish. I just think Rancho Santa Fe is a fantastic course.”
Fizgerald, a Political Science junior at UC Riverside, has “only played one match in my life, and that was in November,” he said. “It should be interesting. Today’s round at La Jolla was a tough one, I felt like I really had to defend par.”
Southern California defended its Roger Lapham team title, a competition against a six-man team from Northern California that is played concurrently with stroke play. With the best five of six scores counted toward the team total, the Southern California team defeated Northern California, 723-727.
After today’s stroke-play qualifying, the field was cut to the low 32 for match play seeding, with a cutline at 4-over-par 148. Twenty-one of the 32 match play contestants are from Southern California. Matches tomorrow include:
7:30 a.m.: Almquist (No. 1) versus Sam Yi (No. 32) of Northridge.
7:39 a.m.: Jason Bittick of Ladera Ranch (No. 16) versus Spencer Fletcher (No. 17) of Los Altos.
7:48 a.m.: Kevin Marsh (No.  8) of Henderson, Nev., the 1996 and 2008 SCGA Amateur champion, versus Dan Jennings (No. 25) of Los Angeles.
7:57 a.m.: Taylor Travis (No. 9) of Fremont, the 2008-09 NCGA Four-Ball champion, versus Pete Fernandez, Jr. (No. 24) of Bakersfield.
8:06 a.m.: Eric Mina (No. 4) of Fremont, the 2010 Pac-10 Conference champion, versus Estanislao Guerrero (No. 29) of San Diego, the 2010 Southwestern Amateur champion.
8:15 a.m.: Justin Warthen (No. 13) of Arroyo Grande versus Johnny Baxter (No. 20) of Pleasanton.
8:24 a.m.: Harry Rudolph III (No. 5) of La Jolla, the 1991 California State Amateur champion, versus defending champion Geoff Gonzalez of San Luis Obispo (No. 28).
8:33 a.m.: Anton Arboleda (No. 12) of La Canada versus John Kollus (No. 21) of San Diego, a U.S. Open Sectional qualifier.
8:42 a.m.: Fitzgerald (No. 2) of Riverside versus Robert Funk (No. 31) of Canyon Lake, the 2006 SCGA Mid-Amateur champion.
8:51 a.m.: Michael Drake (No. 15) of Riverside, the 2010 Long Beach Match Play champion, versus Scott Clayton (No. 18) of San Bernardino.
9:00 a.m.: Grant Norton (No. 7) of Rancho Murieta versus Kevin Dougherty (No. 26) of Murrieta, the 2009 CIF-SCGA Southern Regional and State champion.
9:09 a.m.: Tyler Crawford (No. 10) of Rancho Mirage versus Josh Dupont (No. 23) of Poway.
9:18 a.m.: Todd Pieri (No. 3) of Simi Valley versus Matt Williams (No. 30) of San Jose.
9:27 a.m.: Maximilian Greil (No. 14) of Irvine versus Scott Travers (No. 19) of Trabuco Canyon.
9:36 a.m.: Patrick Cantlay (No. 6) of Los Alamitos, the 2010 CIF-State High School Boys champion, versus Jake Johnson (No. 27) of Cameron Park.
9:45 a.m.: Randy Haag (No. 11) of Burlingame, a multiple NCGA champion, versus EJ Kahn (No. 22) of Los Angeles.