July 4, 2007--Brett Kanda, a redshirt sophomore on the highly-ranked UNLV golf team, won the 108th playing of the Southern California Golf Association Amateur Championship by firing rounds of 68-66-71-70--275 at Victoria Golf Club in Riverside, Calif. And immediately following the tournament it was announced that Kanda would be one of the California representatives on the California team for the playing of the prestigious Pacific Coast Amateur Championship to be held August 7-10 at San Diego Country Club. Kanda defeated UC Irvine's Brian Edick to win the SCGA event, withstanding Edick's final-round 67. While at UNLV, Kanda plays and practices at the Rebels home Las Vegas golf course, Southern Highlands, and other Las Vegas golf courses including Las Vegas Country Club, TPC Canyons and others. View the SCGA final leaderboard ... now.

Kanda earned his way into the Rebels rotation as a redshirt freshman for the 2006-07 season, and played in both the Mountain West Conference Championship and the NCAA Western Regionals. Kanda finished in the top 10 of the MWC, but struggled to a 118th-place finish in the regionals. The team didn't qualify for a trip to the NCAA Finals.

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Past SCGA champions  include Tiger Woods, Paul Stankowski and Al Geiberger, and Kevin Marsh, the US Mid Amateur champion who now lives in the Las Vegas Golf Region.

"Brett has a big-time game," UNLV Head Coach Dwaine Knight has said about Kanda. "He has worked very hard on his short game to get it more consistent ... He was a solid junior player."

As a high school player at Flintridge Prepatory School in La Canada, Calif., he was named LA Times All First Team, and was the MVP of the Prep League.

PHOTO: UNLVREBELS.com