Miles Russell’s run in the U.S. Junior Amateur ended on Friday with another match that went the distance.
Russell, the 15-year-old Jacksonville Beach native and the No. 1 player on the American Junior Golf Association Rankings, fell to Jay Leng of San Diego 1 up after rallying from three holes down with seven to play at the Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Russell won the 12th and 15th holes with pars but Leng, who will enroll at Stanford next month, matched Russell over the last three holes to advance to the semifinals later Friday against Tyler Watts of Huntsville, Alabama. In that match, Watts, the match play portion’s No. 2 seed, prevailed 3 and 2.
The other semifinal featured Trevor Gutschewski of Omaha, Nebraska, who ousted stroke-play medalist Brian Blades in the second round, against Xihuan Chang of China. Gutschewski won that match, 2 and 1, as the No. 33 seed.
Gutschewski is the son of PGA Tour veteran Scott Gutschewski, competing this week at the 3M Open. He’s set to attend Florida this fall.
The 36-hole final is Saturday at 8 a.m. ET. Peacock will have live streaming of the second 18.
Russell was the last surviving Floridian and the only one to reach the third round. He also faced three consecutive opponents who will be playing college golf within a month: Leng (Stanford), CJ Winchenbaugh (Georgetown) and Billy Davis (Auburn).
