[ HIGH SCHOOL JUDO ]
Kaiser's Jordan Atienza, top, and Castle's Randall Sato competed in the boys 105-lbs class preliminary yesterday.
Chargers earn
championship
Fresh off of a track and field state championship last weekend, Pearl City made it two state titles in two weeks by holding off Leilehua to win the boys team judo championship last night at McKinley High.
Meanwhile, Kahuku, the defending girls state champions, had a much tougher time defending their state title. Trailing Farrington by seven points heading into the finals, the Red Raiders got two clutch performances from Roslyn Maiava and Jenna Nihipali to force a tie with Farrington and share the girls state championship.
Nihipali, who finished second in last year's inaugural state championship, defeated Pearl City's Jasmin Lafredez in the 145-pound final to pull even with the Governors.
"I didn't expect anything but the best," Nihipali said, who at the time didn't think she had done enough to pull her team close enough to the Governors. But their two victories combined with two Governors girls losing their finals matches resulted in the first co-championships in the sports' young history.
All three defending state champions in the girls division made it two in a row, including Mililani's Corey Jo Tashima, who won her first state championship last year at Pearl City before transferring to Mililani.
"(The transition) has been tough," Tashima said. "The conditioning and preparation is much more difficult here, especially when it comes to the mental side of it."
Tashima defeated Moanalua's Lisa Katsura in the finals. The two are friends who are in the same judo club and have competed with each other in the OIA and in junior nationals.
"It always comes down to the two of us," Tashima said. "It's tougher to face a friend but you still have to fight every match hard and no two matches are ever the same."
Iolani's Catherine Chan and Maryknoll's Tabitha Lum are the other two two-time state champions. Chan defeated La Pietra's Alicia Huang while Lum took care of McKinley's Nina Feng.
On the boys side, McKinley's Patrick Eglinton wowed the hometown crowd by winning the 123-pound state championship in less than a minute, much to his surprise.
"I was expecting a very long match, maybe even overtime," Eglinton said. "My senses told me to sweep at him to open it up and it worked right away."
Kahuku's Thoran Evans, the only defending state champion in the boys division, won his second straight title in the 105-pound weight class by beating Leilehua's Paul Gerona.
