After opening with rounds of 63 and 67, the recent University of California-Davis graduate posted an even-par 70 which was good enough to extend his lead by an additional stroke over Cory McElyea of Santa Cruz, Calif. With his 10-under par total, he takes a 5-stroke lead into tomorrow's final round.

“The course definitely played tougher today," Said Raber. "It was a little bit windier I thought at times but it didn’t really stay windy. It was kind of off and on.”

Raber added, “The greens were definitely a little bit faster today. Pins were definitely trickier. Very tough to get close to a few of them and even tough to two putt to a few of them if you were in the wrong place. It definitely played a bit more challenging.”

Asked what his thoughts were heading into tomorrow’s final round, Raber didn’t seem phased by the fact he is leading the 47th Pacific Coast Amateur. “Just do my best to be smart, hit smart shots and try not to put myself into any bad spots.”

Meanwhile in solo second is McElyea, a senior on the University of San Franscisco Dons Men’s Golf team. McElyea started the day four strokes back of Raber and played reasonably well throughout the day at the par 70, 6706 yard layout. He would post four birdies and five bogeys throughout his third round to post a one-over-par 71 (68-66-71--205).

Alone in third place at 4-under par for the Championship (68-69-69--206) is recent US Amateur Public Links semifinalist Eric Sugimoto of San Diego, Calif. . His third round one-under-par 69 allowed him to climb the leader board and claim a place in tomorrow’s final grouping with Raber and McElyea.

Defending champion and Hawaii native David Fink sits seven strokes back of Raber at 3-under par 207 (70-67-70. Fink, a senior on the Oregon State University Beavers Men’s Golf Team, had a seesaw round of even-par 70 that featured three bogeys and three birdies. Fink will lead the second-to-last grouping in the final round along with El Paso, Texas’s Devin Miertschin (71-68-69--208) and West Vancouver, British Columbia’s Kevin Spooner (69-66-73--208).

The round of the day went to Ephrata, Wash's Andrew Whalen who posted a 4-under-par 66 on the difficult Stanley Thompson designed course in the mountains of West Vancouver. Whalen sits in a tie for 16th after three rounds and hopes to climb into the top-10 following tomorrow’s final round.