Monday, July 23, 2001

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
The Kailua Canoe Club's freshmen women -- from right, Tracy
Kane, Hillary Broad, Christie Borton and Lilia Kapuniai and
(not pictured) Tara Lemke and Lisa Greenwall -- finished third
in their heat of the OHCRA Championship at Keehi Lagoon
yesterday. The club finished fifth overall.

Outrigger
outruns Lanikai

After being second best nearly
all season, the club runs its best races
when it always does -- at the end

---

By Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.com

Demonstrating that parity was short lived in the Oahu Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association, Outrigger Canoe Club captured its fifth association championship in seven years yesterday at Keehi Lagoon.

Only three clubs -- Outrigger, Lanikai, and Kailua -- have won the championship in the last seven seasons. Those three are also the only ones to win a regatta this season: Lanikai won four and Outrigger and Kailua one each.

Outrigger, which finished second to Lanikai much of the season, made it two in a row yesterday at Keehi Lagoon.

"We had another good regatta," Outrigger coach Kehau Kali said.

"We've been pretty consistent except for one of them. We've been earning the same amount of points."

Outrigger won 10 of the 36 races and placed in 16 others to win the overall title convincingly with 83 points.

Only two points separated the second- through fourth-place clubs. Lanikai, a winner of four regattas this season, came in second with 61 points.

Hui Lanakila won four races and pushed the traditionally dominant OHCRA clubs all day. In the last event of the day, the Men's 35, Hui Lanakila finished second behind Lanikai to grab third place with 60 points. Hui Nalu finished fourth with 59 points.

Healani, Keahiakahoe and Waikiki Surf finished in a three-way tie for first with 20 points each in the A division.

Yesterday's loss marked an uncharacteristic performance for Lanikai, which only won six races.

"We just didn't pull it together," Lanikai president Mauli Aspelund said.

"We had a couple of guys missing but everybody else was really hot."

"What we've had happen is that towards the end we usually have one regatta that's a letdown for us. Usually, we pick right back up but this week we didn't."

Lanikai is still poised to defend its state championship after qualifying 26 crews for the Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association championship on Aug. 4 on Hanalei Bay, Kauai.

But the Windward Oahu club expects to be pushed in its title defense, particularly by Outrigger. The perennial powerhouse qualified 28 crews for the state race.

Though Outrigger won't complete the paddling trifecta -- the club didn't win its own Macfarlane Regatta on July 4th -- two out of three (the OHCRA and state titles) would still satisfy Kali.

"That would be nice," Kali said. "We've had a really dynamic season. We had lot of energy, rebuilding of programs, and getting back to tradition."