California Amateur: Medalist Chen seeks to end 13-year drought

No.1 seed Kuangyu Chen is on to another day of action at this week's California Amateur Championship at Big Canyon Country Club. Chen (pictured, above), who goes by Tony and is a sophomore at Cal-Berkeley, squeaked into Friday's quarterfinals after edging No.16 Marc Engellenner. Engellenner, the winner of last year's Sacramento City, had taken a 1-up lead with a birdie on the par-4 11th. He'd hold that lead over the next four holes until Chen struck back with a clutch birdie on the par-5 16th to tie the match up. Following a halve on No.17, Chen again came up big, making par on the 18th while Engellenner made bogey. In Friday's quarterfinals, Chen will next face No.9 Casey Leebrick. Leebrick, a senior at Sacramento State, moved on with a 3 and 2 win over Shea Lague. Also moving on to the quarterfinals were NorCal players Sam Sommerhauser and Kevin Huff. The two will square off in one of the quarterfinals matches. Sommerhauser, a junior at the University of Arizona and the No.30 seed, won last year's NCGA Amateur at Spyglass Hill. Huff, the No.6 seed and a former player at Fresno State, has yet to trail in a match. The other two quarterfinals will be SoCal showdowns. No.31 Alexander Yang will play No.23 Joe Neuheisel and No.29 Charlie Reiter will take on No.21 Tyler Kowack. Reiter, one of the biggest hitters in the field, recently competed in the U.S. Open and was runner-up in 2020. The last No.1 seed to win the event was Geoff Gonzalez in 2009. Chen, who was born in China, would become only the second join Capt. A. Bullock Webster (1924) and Francis Brown (1930) as the only foreign-born players to win the event. Bullock-Webster was born in England, while Brown was born in Hawaii in 1892 before the islands became a state.