HPU tennis team gains
No. 1 ranking

Hawaii Pacific University's local tennis rivalry with Brigham Young-Hawaii is a national one once again.

Hawaii Pacific, NCAA finalists the last two seasons, came out on top of the initial NCAA Division II rankings released Saturday. BYUH is ranked third with Valdosta State separating them.

"We call it cautious optimism," Hawaii Pacific coach Henry Somerville said.

The Sea Warriors return five of six starters from last year's 17-3 team that went to the national final. Leading the way will be All-Americans Michael Maata, Stefan Pampulov and Jan Tribler. All-American Blaz Jurjec transferred from Lees-McRae to make the group even stronger.

Although the Sea Warriors were judged to be the stronger team, the Seasiders have two players ranked higher.

Jan Krejci starts the season as the fourth-best player in the nation, followed by Peter Madarassy at fifth.

Maata and Jurjec -- at eight and ninth, respectively -- give Hawaii four players ranked in the top 10. West Florida sophomore Radovan Chrz is No. 1.

National rankings will be released on a bi-weekly basis beginning in February.

Wahine swimmers lose to Oregon State

The Hawaii Wahine swimmers fell to Oregon State, 134-97, yesterday at the Duke Kahanamoku Aquatic Complex.

UH senior Candice Cabebe placed second to NCAA qualifier Naya Hagashijima in the 1,000-meter freestyle with a time of 10 minutes, 33.6 seconds. Cabebe's time ranks fifth all-time at Hawaii.

Freshman Karan Toews (400 individual medley), junior Katie Seall (200 freestyle) and Morgan Hoesterey (50 freestyle) won races for the Wahine.

Hawaii's next competition is a dual meet against Seattle on Dec. 18.

Kalaheo tops Iolani for Alegre title -- again

The Kalaheo boys basketball team continued its winning ways against Iolani on Saturday, beating the Raiders, 71-61, to win the James Alegre Invitational.

It was the second straight year Kalaheo beat Iolani in the tournament title game. The Mustangs also defeated the Raiders in last season's state championship game.

Senior Ikaika Alama-Francis led all scorers with 26 points. Michael Gayle chipped in with 17 points and all-stater D.C. Daniels finished with 13.

Senior Tyler McCready paced Iolani with 17 points.

Punahou defeated Radford, 50-41, in the third-place game. Kamehameha was the consolation champion.

Bogdanowicz is champ at STREND event

Matthew Bogdanowicz scored an 8.046 to win the men's open division of the University of Hawaii ROTC STREND Fitness Challenge yesterday at Cooke Field.

UH's Michael Shultz and Trista Mustaine were the college ROTC division winners.

The event consists of five upper body strength events -- bench press, pull up, shoulder press, chin up and bar dip -- and one endurance event -- a three-mile run.