Lahainaluna sweeps state wrestling titles


Lahainaluna girls and boys squads pose for a picture after sweeping both state titles. Steve Erler | Special to SL

Finally.

For the first time in the near-five decade history of the state wrestling tournament, a school from the neighbor islands won and only fittingly, it was Lahainaluna and appropriately, it was a clean sweep.

The Lunas broke through in a big way by winning both the boys' and girls' team title at the Chevron/Hawaii High School Athletic Association Wrestling State Championships at Neal S. Blaisdell Center Arena Saturday night.

"We felt like it passed us the last couple of years — especially with the boys — (but) this year, this group of kids have been three, four years in the making," Lahainaluna coach Todd Hayase said. "A lot of these kids are year-round wrestlers. They train, we go to all these camps and clinics on the mainland and this year we just set these kids up with all the preseason tournaments — we went to four tournaments — we wanted to create the competition for these kids, so here at states we would have this. It's just awesome."

In the boys' competition, Lahainaluna scored 158 1/2 points to hold off runner-up Punahou, which had 146 1/2 points, and third-place Kamehameha, which posted 143 points. Campbell was fourth with 139 points and Iolani rounded out the top five with 107 1/2 points.

It was a back-and-forth battle between the Lunas and the Buffanblu, who held a 10 1/2-point lead after the first day of competition Friday and a four-point lead going into the finals round Saturday afternoon.

Lahainaluna had a pair of individual boys' champions in Robert Campos at 138 pounds and Thomas Rosen St. John at 170.

"We just made history over here," said Rosen St. John, who pinned Kamehameha's Kevin Efta in the second round of their championship bout. "It feels awesome. I don't think it's quite hit me yet, but it will. Definitely."

Seven other Lunas placed in the top six of their respective weight classes. Kainalu Estrella (113 pounds), Christian Balagso (120) and Connor Mowat (285) turned in third-place finishes, Wayne Alibin (182) finished fourth, Izaak Panlasigui-Domingo (106) and Josten Saribay (126) took fifth and Conrad Bolor (220) was sixth.

In the girls' competition, Lahainaluna racked up 203 1/2 points to pull away from runner-up Kamehameha, who had 177 points. Campbell was third with 132 points, Kahuku fourth with 127 points and Pearl City fifth with 123 1/2 points.

The Warriors, who entered the weekend at defending state champions, were tied with the Lunas atop the standings with 88 points apiece after day one Friday. However, the semifinal round early Saturday morning was where the Lunas made their move.

Both Kamehameha and Lahainaluna had seven semifinalists, but five of the Lunas won, while just two of the Warriors did. Consequently, Lahainluna opened up a 41 1/2-point lead on Kamehameha, which it did not relinquish.

"If you just look at our finals — the boys and the girls — we needed some luck with others knocking off others from other teams, but ultimately they had to take care of business and that's all we could do was take care of business with our wrestlers and man, they did," Hayase said. "They were just so focused and they performed."

The Lady Lunas entered the tournament with six No. 1 seeds. All but one of them won their weight class.

"There's no better way than going out than this," said Diamond Freitas, who beat Punahou's Taryn Ichimura, 12-2, in the 112-pound final. "This is my senior year. I lost my sophomore and junior years, so I had everything to lose and us as a team, our 2015 class of seniors, we're all studs and this was the year to do it, so we really pulled it off."

Other Lunas who finished first were Alexis Encinas (107 pounds), Breanna Dudoit-Vasquez (138), Carly Jaramillo (145) and Lalelei Mataafa (220). It was the second consecutive title for Dudoit-Vasquez and third straight for both Jaramillo and Mataafa.

"This is the first time we've all won the title and we put aside all the individual titles and it's basically a team thing right now and we're all stoked about it," said Jaramillo, who beat Campbell's Angela Peralta, 8-1, in her final high school match. "A lot of us had some tough losses today, but we helped pick each other up and we still pushed through it to get this team title and we got it in the end. There's nothing else that could make this better."

In addition to their five state titlists, four other Lunas earned medals: Iverly Navarro (102 pounds) placed third, Karina Arroyo-Haro (168) was fifth and Kaile Kron (117), Alexandrea Aquino (132) took sixth in their respective weight classes.

Lahainaluna's boys have finished no worse than third in the state every year since 2008, while the girls have posted top-four finishes in each of the past five seasons.

Several individuals took home a second straight state championship, including Kaiser's Chance Ikei, who moved up at 132 after winning at 113 last year, Kamehameha's Boman Tokioka, who claimed back-to-back titles at 195, and Campbell's Tristan Ludiazo, who bumped up to 285 after winning at 220 last year.

Also, Kamehameha junior Teshya Alo claimed her third individual state title by coasting through the girls' 132-pound weight class. Alo and Lahainaluna's Mataafa will have a chance to win their fourth state title as seniors next year.



Reach Kalani Takase at [email protected].