HIGH SCHOOL BOWLING
HBA boys, Aiea girls roll to wins
The Hawaii Baptist Academy boys bowling team missed out on a state championship last year because of a bad day at the worst possible time. It got the championship this year by avoiding a single slip-up all season.
"We had one bad day with this team," HBA coach Greg Hayashi said. "Unfortunately, it was last year at Fort Shafter (on the final day of the state championship). The boys seem to have been trying to make up for that all year."
Senior Rich Kodama led the way for the Eagles, beating James Pirtle of Pearl City by nine pins. Kodama knocked down 1,848 pins in the two-day tournament at the Lihue Bowling Center. Aiea won the girls title by 211 pins over Hawaii Baptist, and Kalani sophomore Dara Ajimine took the individual title with 1,686 pins, the fewest for a winner since 1995 at Lihue Lanes.
Kalani's Ajimine led after the first day of the tournament by 21 pins over Malia Baldovi of Maui and closed with a 210, her highest game of the tournament, to beat Pearl City's Seiko Santos by 25.
Aiea's girls also won the title in 2004 -- at the same lanes -- before slipping last year. Na Alii made up for their third-place finish last year by sweeping their division, league and state tournaments this season. They slipped a bit off their averages yesterday, but put each of their top five bowlers in the top 37 to take the team title.
Lianne Deeter led the way for Na Alii with a seventh-place finish, followed by Holly Somera (14th), Ashley Primacio (17th), Adrienne Pang (26th) and Darcy Oyama (37th).
"This place has been good to us," Aiea coach Isaac Avilla said. "I don't know what it is, but we seem to play well here."