MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA — A day that started with a seven-man playoff to reach match play and which featured a bushel full of lower seeds pulling upsets ended with the cream of the crop still left in the 115th Massachusetts Amateur.
Led by top seed John Broderick, the field was trimmed from 32 to eight after two exciting rounds of match play at the Essex County Club.
Broderick’s day was relatively easy compared to some of his competitors as he closed out Frank Vana 3 & 2 in the opening round before ousting Brian Higgins on the 17th in the Round of 16. For the sophomore at Vanderbilt, who shot a course record 62 on Tuesday, facing a player the caliber of Vana offered a chance to focus right back in on the task at hand.
“A player like Frank can just wear you down. You can’t beat him with pars. I learned that real quick,” Broderick said. “I kind of treated today as I was already playing well so I just wanted to keep it going.”
Broderick’s opponent in the quarterfinals on Thursday will be No. 25 seed Jake Shuman, who upended Collin McMahon-Shea and Collin Fitzpatrick in convincing fashion.
Shuman’s two wins were part of a day full of surprises right from the get go as seven lower seeds advanced out of the round of 32, with the biggest shocker coming as Joseph Lenane stunned No. 2 seed James Imai in 20 holes.
Lenane was two down with three holes to play but won the 16th and 17th to square things before a par on the 20th hole got the job done.
In all, 10 of the 16 opening round matches reached at least the 17th hole. With two others, Ethan Whitney’s win over Bill Drohen and Joe Harney’s eliminating Jacob Finard, needing extra holes.
Harney and Lenane kept the party going for the lower seeds as they marched into the third round after never trailing in their matches against Andrew DiRamio and former Amateur champ Matt Parziale, respectively.
No. 14 C.J. Winchenbaugh and No. 13 Jack Boulger also marched into the quarterfinals. Boulder did it in impressive fashion, eliminating No. 4 Ricky Stimets 7 & 5.
The only other single digit seeds left in the bracket are No. 5 Matthew Naumec and No. 7 Ryan Downes as both of them had to go the distance in round one before nearly doing the same in the second 18 of the day.
Downes used a chip in on the 16th to take a 1 up before Whitney birdies 18 to send it to a 19th hole where Downes hit a wedge to 10 feet from the right fescue and canned the out to win. Naumec eliminated Weston Jones.
