SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU K D5
of his approach shots finished
less than 10 feet from the hole. A
pro since 2016 after playing at
University of Texas, Hossler has a
career-best finish of second in the
2018 Houston Open and was
third this year at Pebble Beach.
Stallings, a 37-year-old three-
time winner on the tour, started
the day out of the top 20 and got
in range of the leaders when he
dropped a 36-foot birdie at No. 8
to go 7 under. It was his third
birdie of the day, and two more at
14 and 15 gave him a share of the
lead.
l LPGA TOUR: Jennifer Kup-
cho started fast and kept on going
in the Chevron Championship to
take a six-stroke lead into the last
round ever at Mission Hills in the
major championship.
Kupcho shot an 8-under 64 on
another hot and sunny afternoon
in Rancho Mirage, Calif., for a
tournament-record 16-under 200
total. Defending champion Patty
Tavatanakit, playing alongside
Kupcho in the second-to-last
group, was second after a 70.
Kupcho moved into position to
win for the first time on the LPGA
Tour and take the last victory leap
in Poppie’s Pond, three years after
passing up a spot in the event to
play and win that week in the
inaugural Augusta National
Women’s Amateur.
The tournament that started in
1972 and became a major in 1983
is moving to Houston after failing
to attract a sponsor willing to
keep it at history-packed Mission
Hills.
l PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS:Steven Alker shot a tou-
rnament-record 10-under 62 to
take a one-stroke lead over Bob
Estes after the second round of
the Rapiscan Systems Classic in
Biloxi, Miss.
Alker had an 11-under 133 total
at Grand Bear Golf Club, the
first-year venue after the previ-
ous 10 editions were played at
Fallen Oak.
“I just kind of dialed in my
irons early on and took advantage
of the par-5s and obviously putt-
ed better,” Alker said. “You always
putt well when you shoot 62. I
just gave myself a lot of chances.
Seemed like I was inside kind of
10 feet, 12 feet a lot today, and I
made some nice up-and-downs at
the end.”
l AMATEUR: The model of
calm beneath her bucket hat,
16-year-old Anna Davis cruised
her way around the back nine at
Augusta National without a bo-
gey and seemingly without a care.
Only after she finished off a
3-under 69 at the home of the
Masters did the nerves kick in
while she watched the final two
groups in the Augusta National
Women’s Amateur in Georgia.
She thought her 12-foot birdie
putt that slid by the cup might
cost her. And then she watched
from the scoring cabin as Latan-
na Stone threw away a two-shot
lead with two holes to play by
making a double bogey from the
17th fairway and a bogey from the
pine straw on the final hole,
making Davis the youngest
champion at the home of the
Masters.ASSOCIATED PRESSBrandt Snedeker and Beau
Hossler each shot rounds of 5-un-
der-par 67 to join J.J. Spaun and
Dylan Frittelli atop the leader
board after the third round of the
Texas Open on Saturday in San
Antonio.
Both Spaun, who shot a 69, and
Frittelli (70) finished with a share
of the lead at 10-under 206.
A final-hole bogey kept Scott
Stallings out of the lead. He also
shot a 65 and was a shot back at
9 under. Matt Kuchar’s bogey at
18 dropped him to 8 under after
an even-par round.
Spaun birdied four of his five
holes heading to the 18th to take a
one-shot lead. At the 17th, he
drove the green at the 303-yard
par-4 and almost made the
1 9-foot eagle.
H owever, he pushed his tee
shot on 18 into the trees, punched
out, then laid up short of the
stream that guards the final
green. He ended up with a 22-foot
putt for par that he missed.
“If you told me this Tuesday
like, ‘Hey, you’re going to be tied
for the lead going into Sunday,’ I
would totally take it,” Spaun said.
“Yeah, bogey on the last hole, but
I think it could have been worse.
So I’m not too bummed out about
that.”
Second-round leader Ryan
Palmer didn’t have a bogey Fri-
day. On Saturday he didn’t have a
birdie and dropped to 21st place
with a 5-over 77.
With a bogey-free round,
Snedeker was 4 under on the
backside. He is looking for his
first win since 2018. It would be
his 10th tour victory.
“I’ve been working hard at it,
probably as hard as I ever have in
my career,” Snedeker said. “I just
haven’t had any success. And the
only way you fix that is to go out
there and do it, go out there and
keep practicing and keep grind-
ing, which I’ve been doing. And
you’ve got to relish the challenge
when you get them.”
Spaun and Hossler are l ooking
for their first tour win, and Frit-
telli won in 2019 at the John
Deere Classic.
Maverick McNealy matched
the best round of the day with a
65, and he was three shots back
with Charles Howell III (72), Si
Woo Kim (68), Denny McCarthy
(68), Troy Merritt (69), Aaron Rai
(68), Brendon Todd (72) and Gary
Woodland (72).
Hossler had three straight
birdies starting at No. 14 when allGOLF ROUNDUP
Snedeker, Hossler join
a four-way tie in Texas
more than a decade. Pieces of this
Kansas core have played together
for a few years, trying to com-
plete that mission. Agbaji, Mc-
Cormack and Braun were all part
of the rotation during the Jay-
hawks’ impressive 2020 cam-
paign. They were poised to earn a
No. 1 seed in the tournament that
season before the event was can-
celed because of the coronavirus
pandemic. Losing that opportu-
nity, Self said, has brought more
value to this season’s run.
Last year, Kansas lost in the
second round of the NCAA tour-
nament, adding another postsea-
son letdown to this group’s mem-
ory. Now the Jayhawks have re-
turned with depth and experi-
ence. They didn’t mind the lack
of a spotlight entering this
matchup because it doesn’t mat-
ter how much pageantry and
attention surrounds a Final Four
game. No matter the circum-
stances, a win would send Kansas
to the title game. Those veterans
understood that, and then they
rose to the occasion on the sport’s
biggest stage.have been a stunning comeback.
Kansas outscored Villanova 17-7
over the final six minutes.
These two teams met in the
2018 Final Four, and the Wildcats
made 18 three-pointers in a rout
of Kansas that night in San
Antonio. Villanova went on to
win the national title, and Self
says now, “I get tics whenever I
think about [that game].”
He joked that the Jayhawks’
2-0 run after the opening tip in
that national semifinal four years
ago might have been the high-
light for his team, which later
slipped into a 22-4 deficit. Self
watched the film of that game
this week, not to revisit the
disappointment but to remem-
ber how the Wildcats attacked
Kansas’s defense in the paint.
With those memories fresh, Self
said Saturday’s game felt like “a
little bit of a reversal” of the 2018
game, albeit not quite to the
same extent.
Kansas has remained a peren-
nial power under Self, but the
Jayhawks haven’t lifted the na-
tional championship trophy infor 31), keeping them within
striking distance.
Collin Gillespie scored eight of
Villanova’s 10 consecutive points
late in the first half. The fifth-
year point guard finished with a
team-high 17 points and a 5-for-8
mark from beyond the arc.
Villanova’s title hopes took a
hit last weekend when Justin
Moore, the team’s second-leading
scorer, tore his Achilles’ tendon
in the waning moments of the
team’s Elite Eight victory. The
former DeMatha standout sat on
the bench in tears, muting the
celebration of the Wildcats. Even
with Moore, Villanova had a
short rotation, primarily relying
on six players. In his absence,
depth became more of a pressing
issue.
Caleb Daniels, a New Orleans
native who began his career at
Tulane, started in Moore’s place
and scored 13 points. Brandon
Slater hit 4 of 7 attempts from
beyond the arc to help recoup
some of the lost production. But
the Wildcats couldn’t generate
enough late to finish what wouldfinalist, who made his first six
shots, all from three-point range,
and finished with 21 points. Four
of those three-pointers came in
the opening nine minutes, when
the Jayhawks established just
about everything they wanted to
on offense. Agbaji had made only
four three-pointers over the pre-
vious four games of the tourna-
ment, and Self said the senior’s
strong start in the semifinal in-
jected confidence into the rest of
the team.
McCormack had a game-high
25 points on 10-for-12 shooting
while grabbing nine rebounds.
When Villanova trimmed the
margin to 64-58, its smallest
deficit of the second half, McCor-
mack answered with a tough
jump shot in the paint.
Villanova’s defense, a staple of
Coach Jay Wright’s teams, strug-
gled to find its footing at the
start. The Jayhawks hit 13 of their
first 19 shots, sending Kansas
fans out of their seats as an early
celebration began. But the Wild-
cats hung around on the strength
of their three-point shooting (13Kansas entered the semifinal “re-
laxed but still confident and
ready to attack the game,” Agbaji
said. That led to a commanding
start and a massive early advan-
tage that forced the Wildcats to
chase from behind all evening.
After two fouls sent McCor-
mack to the bench for the final six
minutes before halftime, Villano-
va mustered a 10-0 run and went
into the break trailing 40-29. The
deficit seemed manageable for
the Wildcats (30-8) after such a
dreadful start, and they eventual-
ly trimmed their margin to six
with 6:10 left. But they never
climbed closer. Braun made a
pair of three-pointers in the final
four minutes — one with the shot
clock running down and the
deficit still single digits — that
gave the Jayhawks the cushion
they needed.
“Even though they were better
[early in the second half] and
had momentum, we always
seemed to have an answer,” Kan-
sas Coach Bill Self said.
The Jayhawks leaned on Agba-
ji, a national player of the yearpushes of No. 2 seed Villanova, a
team depleted by injury that fell
into a double-digit hole before it
even scored a field goal. But
when the Wildcats tried to climb
back, Kansas had the answers.
Now the Jayhawks await
eighth-seeded North Carolina,
which knocked off No. 2 seed
Duke, 81-77, in Saturday’s second
semifinal. Amid t heir glee as they
raced from the court to the locker
room, the Kansas players shout-
ed, “One more!” That’s all it will
take for the Jayhawks to win
their first national title since
2008.
“We don’t come to Kansas to
play the Final Four,” junior guard
Christian Braun said. “We come
to Kansas to win a national
championship. Everybody has
that mind-set.”
The Jayhawks scored the
game’s first 10 points, mostly
thanks to Agbaji’s perimeter
shooting and McCormack’s in-
side presence. Their lead grew to
as large as 19 in the first half.
KANSAS FROM D1
Jayhawks rock on, oust Wildcats to earn berth in title game
DAVID J. PHILLIP/ASSOCIATED PRESSOchai Agbaji, second from left, was a force for top-seeded Kansas (33-6) on Saturday, hitting his first six shots — all from beyond the arc — and scoring 21 points to help send the Jayhawks to Monday’s final.
STACY REVERE/GETTY IMAGESCARMEN MANDATO/GETTY IMAGES
Brandt Snedeker, top, and Beau Hossler, above, shot 5 under par
Saturday and are 10 under for the tournament in San Antonio.