GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
The Punahou girls paddled their way to victory in the finals heat yesterday and would go on to win the first-place trophy in the state finals on Keehi Lagoon.
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Kalaheo boys make history
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Kalaheo earned the Oahu Interscholastic Association's first single-gender paddling title yesterday to headline the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Canoe Paddling Championships.
The Mustangs won handily over Kapaa with a time of 3 minutes, 43.21 seconds and mobbed each other upon returning to the lagoon shore.
Punahou's girls took home a first-place trophy for the second time in three years with a gutsy win over Kapaa, while Konawaena won the Big Island Interscholastic Federation's first overall championship by taking the mixed-gender category over Kamehameha and Maryknoll.
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GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Kalaheo beat Kapaa by 4 seconds to win the varsity boys division of the state canoe paddling championships yesterday.
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On a day of firsts, who's to say a second can't crash the party?
Kalaheo and Konawaena broke through for their leagues' first respective titles in the boys and mixed categories, and the Punahou girls took home their second title in three years at the First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Canoe Paddling State Championships yesterday under crystal-clear skies at Keehi Lagoon.
Judging from the outburst of jubilation by the Mustang paddlers upon reaching the shore, the barriers had been ready to fall for quite some time.
It was the first single-gender paddling championship for the Oahu Interscholastic Association and first overall paddling title for the Big Island Interscholastic Federation since the HHSAA sanctioned the sport in 2002. The Interscholastic League of Honolulu has dominated, with all six boys titles until yesterday and a complete seven on the girls side with Punahou's win.
"For all the public schools out there, and just for our school, representing Kalaheo," Mustang 2-position senior Lopaka Oliva-Ancog explained of his team's impromptu beach celebration. "I've been waiting for that forever. I never won a state championship and this was so important to me, especially for my last year."
Kapaa, of the Kauai Interscholastic Federation, will have to settle for being tantalizingly close to its league's first titles for at least a year, with second-place finishes in both the boys and girls finals.
Kalaheo's winning time of 3 minutes, 43.21 seconds was good for more than a canoe-length win over Kapaa, while Maryknoll of the ILH placed third.
The Mustangs' 21-year-old coach, Julian Wicker, could almost be mistaken for one of his paddlers -- the team's senior steersman, Kao Malama-Custer, was a freshman paddler when Wicker graduated from Kalaheo. The first-year coach explained that each heat's half-mile distance was conducive to his team's burst strength, whereas the Mustangs had repeatedly fallen to Anuenue in the distance contests of the regular season.
"We definitely pushed hard and it was our race to take," Wicker said.
The other Mustang paddlers in the final were Nicholas Seeger, Alexander Guillaume, Lawrence Soto and Shawn Reed.
The Buffanblu girls' winning time of 4:26.53 bested Kapaa by 0.20 in a thriller.
Senior steersman Brooke Hunter "kissed" the flag buoy on the halfway turn exactly as her coach, Marion Lyman-Mersereau taught her, and it paid dividends during the frantic final quarter-mile.
Hunter was modest about it.
"I had a little trouble, definitely," the four-year senior said. (If the flag on the buoy hits the water, the team is disqualified). "My team was a little worried, I really kissed the buoy going around. My first team was going, 'Brooke, Brooke, Brooke!' But I made it work."
Her teammate, 3-position junior Hannah Ishida, thought the Buffanblu might have benefited from the close quarters of Kapaa and third-place Baldwin.
"It kept the intensity level up a lot, which kept us going, I think," the Punahou swimmer-turned-paddler said. "I thought it was neck and neck."
Their teammates -- Marlie Long, Chelsea Jones, Tawni Goodman and Jasmine Daniel -- completed a six-person crew that went the distance through all heats during the day.
That finish was close, but it was the Wildcats' stunning victory in the mixed-gender category that stole the show in the final race of the day.
Konawaena's final winning time of 4:00.73 was just 16 hundredths of a second better than Kamehameha's, and Maryknoll was a close third at 4:01.04. To the naked eye, it appeared to be a three-way tie. Officials had to review results for several minutes while the Wildcats, Warriors and Spartans milled about the launching area restlessly.
"Oh yeah, this was the craziest finish I've been a part of," Konawaena junior Mikie Suber said with a laugh. "We were telling, 'Did we win?' We were expecting second, everybody was telling us it was close. Just hoping for the best."
When Kona's squad was declared the winner, a cheer went up from the Big Island faithful.
The Wildcats got off to a sluggish start, and had to give that much more effort after the quarter-mile halfway flag.
"It was such a close finish I couldn't stand it," seven-year coach Paul Daugherty said. "We didn't know, we didn't know who had it. It's a shock. I'm glad we were able to represent -- I liken it to being a bridesmaid, I'm glad we were a part of the wedding."
Amanda Loewe-Llanes, Kelli Yamauchi, Noel Tavares, Ryan Daugherty and Joshua Yong completed Konawaena's winning crew.