Roosevelt's Macy Higa was victorious at 115 pounds, beating out Kalani's Czarina Pineda-Abaya by ippon. Brien Ing | SL

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WAHIAWA — Just as they did last year, the Roosevelt duo of Menjam Tamang and Macy Higa stood atop the podium at Saturday's Oahu Interscholastic Association girls judo championships at Leilehua's Paul T. Kobayashi Gymnasium.

The Rough Riders' super sophomores were among four judoka to capture a second individual league title at the day-long tournament.

Higa faced a familiar opponent in Czarina Pineda-Abaya, of Kalani, in the 115-pound final. At last week's Eastern Division finals, the pair went to sudden-death overtime before Higa prevailed by shido (penalty) over Pineda-Abaya, last year's 109-pound OIA champion.

"I'd say today's match was very similar except for the way it ended, because Czarina is a really good judo player and it's (usually) back and forth," said Higa, who won both the OIA and state championship at 98 pounds last season.

The match remained scoreless for more than three minutes, before the left-handed Higa caught the right-handed Pineda-Abaya with a left uchimata (inner thigh throw) for a yuko (quarter-point) with about 40 seconds left. Pineda-Abaya eventually shot an off-balanced ouchi-gari (major inner reaping throw), which Higa countered for ippon (full point) to end the match in the closing seconds.

"It feels good to win again," Higa said. "It's certainly taken a lot of hard work and I'm glad that I'm able to, I guess in a way, give back to all my coaches and teammates and my parents."

A few matches earlier, Tamang defeated Moanalua's Nicole Shimizu by ippon in the 103-pound championship. It initially appeared that the match was over just about 45 seconds in when Tamang countered Shimizu's uchimata attempt. However, the center referee's call of ippon was overturned to a waza-ari (half point) by the two side judges.

Not that it mattered much to Tamang, who transitioned quickly into a kesa-gatame (scarf hold) for the pin, and eventually, the ippon.

"I didn't know what was going on," Tamang said. "I didn't think I scored anything, honestly. I just thought that I got on top of her and I was just pinning her because I thought that's what was going on. I didn't realize they scored the throw."

Tamang, last year's OIA and state champion at 98 pounds, also pinned Shimizu in the East finals last weekend.

The Rough Riders, who had five divisional champions, qualified a league-best 11 judoka for next week's state tournament, where they'll hope to defend their team title from a year ago.

"Winning again would be really good, but at the same time I think because there are other schools that are good state contenders as well," Tamang said. "We just have to come out strong and come out firing for us to be able to win again. So as long as our heads at in the right place and we're in the right mindset, I think we still have a chance of winning."

Also laying claim to her second consecutive title Saturday was Moanalua 98-pounder Amanda Higa, who moved down a weight class this year after winning at 103 pounds as a freshman last year.

Higa staved off McKinley's Kayla Kahoaka by waza-ari in the title bout. She got the score on a left tai-otoshi (body drop) just 10 seconds into the match and later added an insurance yuko on an ouchi-gari.

"I really trusted in my training and my coaches that they'll help me through this," said Higa, who threw Kahoaka for ippon at Eastern's last week.

The spring season has been a busy one for Higa, who is also a member of the Moanalua softball team. However, the softball season came to close for Higa this week after Na Menehune were eliminated from the OIA tournament Wednesday.

"It was kind of hard, but I was going like half to softball practice, half to judo practice," said Higa, who placed fifth in the state last year. "I was working like double-time, but it's a lot easier now that it's just judo."

Higa's teammate, senior Sienna Ho, won her second league crown by beating Kalani's Phoebe Pineda-Abaya in the 122-pound final. Ho made quick work of Pineda-Abaya, throwing her for ippon with an osoto-gari (major outer reaping throw) just 52 seconds into the bout.

It was the only time the two have faced off this season. Ho played up a weight class for most of season, including Eastern's last week, where she won the 129-pound bracket. After winning her first title as a sophomore in 2014, Ho finished second last season.

"It just feels good to be able to redeem myself for last year," said Ho, another dual-sport athlete. She was a guard on the Moanalua girls basketball team in the winter.

Pearl City won four of the 10 weight classes. Mikayla Abe won at 109 pounds to improve upon a runner-up finish a season ago and the trio of Nina Seoane (154 pounds) and sisters Jackie (172) and Jenine Fuamatu (220) also won their brackets.

Others winnners were McKinley's Risa Higa at 129 pounds and Kapolei's Kasiane Kawai-Jose at 139.

The top seven place-finishers in each weight class qualified for Saturday's Hawaii High School Athletic Association State Championships at the University of Hawaii's Stan Sheriff Center.