LAKEWOOD – Diamond Bar’s boys golf team won its second consecutive Knabe Cup in impressive fashion Wednesday, leaving no doubt that Wilson High will have to bring its A game to have any chance at a CIF-SS title.
Led by individual champion Dean Sakata, who shot a 5-under 67 at the Lakewood Country Club par-72 course, Diamond Bar’s foursome shot a remarkable 3-under par 285. Led by sophomore Hunter Epson, who shot a 3-under 69, Wilson finished 10 strokes back at 295, good enough for second on a tiebreaker with fellow CIF contender Palos Verdes.
Justin Jang, shot a 68 to finish second and led Whitney, a Cerritos private school, to a fourth-place finish at 297. La Mirada and Torrance tied for fifth place at 307.
“Diamond Bar is a great team,” Wilson coach Jeff Evans said. “To beat them you really have to play well and we had some problems today. PV’s a great team, too, so this isn’t a bad finish for us.
“It’s a pretty good indicator of where you stand in CIF, but it’s not exactly the same. CIF uses six golfers to shoot your five best scores. Here, it’s just four golfers shooting four scores.”
Wilson’s depth is a strength, but Diamond Bar is deep as well.
“Diamond Bar was pretty impressive today,” Epson said, “but it’s not discouraging at all. If anything, it just motivates us to work that much harder. We feel we can compete with them and we can if we all play well.”
Diamond Bar’s Sakata earned the victory with a torrid birdie-birdie-eagle-birdie surge in the middle of the round. Talented as he is, he did not take the victory for granted — for himself or his team.
“This is really positive for us,” he said. “To win this two years in a row means a lot. I believe our team is top three in the state, so this was good for us.
“There’s plenty of great competition individually and PV and Wilson are great teams. It means a lot to win this.”
Diamond Bar’s top two players both finished in the top four. Saheeth Theegala shot a 69, followed by Hsu Sean’s 75 and a 74 by William Yang. Harold Calubid was Wilson’s second-best scorer, shooting an even-par 72, followed by Austin Orkin’s 75 and Ryder Epson’s 79.
Whitney’s fourth-place finish, which included a 71 by Brian Sy, may have been the surprise of the day. For sure, Whitney was thrilled to finish fourth in the prestigious 17th annual Knabe Cup after finishing 12th with essentially the same team a year ago.
“This is my best score here by three strokes,” Jang said. “My drives were going straight today. Everything was working.
Other Long Beach-area schools to finish in the top half of the 34-team field were Millikan (316, tied for eighth), St. John Bosco (317, 10th); Warren (318, 11th); and Poly (319, 12th). Cerritos shot a 323 for 14th.
Top individuals included: Cerritos’ Henry Chung, who shot a 72 to tie Calubid for eighth; Poly’s Jericho Betts, who shot a 73; Kyle Cosca of La Mirada (74) and St. John Bosco’s Erik Rodas (75).
“This is always a good test for everyone and a fun day for all the kids to see how they stack up,” Evans said. “But it’s just one day. Golf is a sport where you can’t always control everything that happens.”
Still, a close call for Epson was both encouraging and frustrating.
“I played pretty well today,” said Epson, who is just a sophomore. “I thought I was going to get my best-ever round here (67), but it didn’t quite go my way on a couple of holes.”
Contact the writer: jimthomas@lbregister.com
