Shotaro Ban of San Jose needed 19 holes to knock off his Cal teammate, eighth-seeded Ben Doyle of La Jolla in the opening round of match play in the 104th California Amateur Championship at Lake Merced Golf Club in Daly City.
Ban, a senior for the Bears, got up-and-down from a greenside bunker for par on the final hole, after Doyle blocked his tee shot to the right, could only punch out and nearly holed his chip shot for par but left it a few agonizing inches short.
“It was as tough as it can get,” Ban said of facing Doyle. “Playing your teammate in the first round is tough. On the front-nine, we talked quite a bit. After making the turn though it got pretty serious.”
In other matches, top-seeded Satch Herrmann of Ventura got past Eric Sugimoto of San Diego, 2 and 1; second-seeded Jake Knapp of Costa Mesa and UCLA beat William Brueckner of Oakland, also by 2 and 1; third-seeded Puwit Anupansuebsai, a high school sophomore from Anaheim, beat Dan Sullivan, Pasadena, 4 and 3, and fourth-seeded K.K. Limbhasut of Loma Linda and Cal got past Justin Suh of San Jose, 3 and 2.
However, Franklin Huang of Poway upset fifth-seeded Sahith Theegala of Chino Hills, 1 up; Matthew Seramin of San Geronimo took down sixth-seeded Lorens Chan of Honolulu, 2 and 1, and Joshua Sedeno of Roseville defeated seventh-seeded Jonathan De Los Reyes of Sacramento, 1 up.
The round of 16 will be played Thursday morning.
For complete scores, including live match play results, go to https://www.ghintpp.com/calam/TPPOnlineScoring/Default.aspx?id=114.
