[ HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETICS ]
State high school champs, meet national collegiate champs. College stars beat
high schoolersBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.comAnd the difference was as great as Wailea and Kansas City, where their respective title matches were won last weekend.
Fresh off their third championship in four years for Brigham Young-Hawaii, top-seeded Petra Gaspar and Tagifano Taosoga advanced to tonight's title match of the 3rd Kailua Women's Night Doubles via a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Kim and Heidi Kaloi of Kamehameha Schools.
Gaspar-Taosoga, who won this event in 2000, will meet Seasider teammates and second seeds, Tomoko Sukegawa and Amy Sun at 7:15 p.m. at the Kailua Racquet Club.
Sukegawa-Sun, playing doubles for the first time together, topped Hawaii Pacific's Lani Matsunaga and Fluerette Miranti 6-2, 6-1. Last night's losers face each other for third place at 6 p.m.
"It's going to be hard to play them," Gaspar said of taking on the other Seasider tandem. "We're such close friends. And we know the Kalois, too. They're very talented."
The sisters avoided the shutout in the sixth game when Taosoga netted a return then double-faulted on her serve. The Kalois then opened the second set with a win, taking advantage of two double faults by Gaspar. Gaspar-Taosoga won the next four games for a 5-1 lead, taking the sixth game after the Kalois had game-point at 40-15. The sisters got a game right back when the hard-serving Taosoga double-faulted twice and then hit long.
In the final game, the Kalois again had game point, at 40-30, before Heidi Kaloi netted two returns off the fly and Gaspar sent a zinger down the left sideline to end it.
In the opening semifinal, the tricky winds on the makai side of the court gave Miranti trouble, as she sent a number of lobs long. Matsunaga-Miranti rallied from 4-1 to 4-3 in the first set.
But the BYUH team pulled away when "we talked about our mistakes during the break and said, 'No more,'" said Sukegawa. "Lani has a nice topspin on her serves that we had trouble returning. We really respect them and it came down to making fewer mistakes."
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