[ PADDLING ]
Waikiki Beachboys canoe club's senior women's crew, with Kelsa Teeters in front, paddled to the finish line to take first.
Kaneohe Canoe Club
continues to dominateThe club scores the most overall
points for the third consecutive week
at the Lokahi Hoe
Three races into the Na Ohana O Na Hui Waa regatta season, the same three clubs have convincingly come up winners in their respective divisions.
Behind yet another dominating performance from its youth crews and some help from the adults, Kaneohe Canoe Club scored the most overall points -- 75 -- for the third straight Sunday and captured the AAA division (25-plus crews) and a regatta-high nine race wins at the Lokahi Hoe yesterday at Keehi Lagoon.
At the same time, Koa Kai made a hat trick of AA (13-24) titles with 49 total points and three race victories yesterday. And the Waikiki Beachboys picked up its third consecutive A (12-less) win with 26 points and four victories.
"We just try to complement what the kids are doing," Kaneohe adults coach Junior Parrilla said. "Like the kids do every week, we gotta do our share."
They did just that. Kaneohe's adult paddlers supported the club by picking up two wins (mixed golden and mixed senior masters).
Still, there's no confusion about how the Hui Waa power's winning tradition has been built in the past and continues in the present: its kids. In the 13 youth races held in the morning, Kaneohe's paddlers won seven times and placed second in the six others.
Its kids contributed 53 points on their own, and by the 20th race (boys 18-under) of the 36-race regatta, Kaneohe already had amassed 63 -- more than AAA runner-up Manu O Ke Kai (60) and third-place Lokahi (53) did all day.
"I think the races are just payoff from how we practice, because we practice hard. It's hard to do good every race, but when you do, it feels good," said Bobby Pratt, the stroker of Kaneohe's winning boys 13-under crew that paddled their quarter-mile course in 2 minutes, 5.45 seconds.
Other members in Pratt's winning crew were: Doug Richardson, Cody Hookano, Alika Kekoanui, Lopaka Cunningham and Kanoa Chang.
While Manu O Ke Kai finished a distant second to Kaneohe in the standings, the Haleiwa club did pick up one of its seven wins for the day in the prestigious 1.5-mile men's senior race with a time of 11:42.97. Members of the winning crew included: Bob Tantog, Robert Pactol, Bonga Perkins, Greg Wright, Charlie Tantog and Moku Sanborn.
Koa Kai finished a close second (11:46.18) in that race, but didn't have to settle for anything less than another AA victory overall because -- just as in the men's senior -- the Magic Island-based club routinely scored points with top-four finishes in 16 races, although winning just three of them.
North Shore and Alapa Hoe finished tied for second in AA with 20 points each, while Waikiki Yacht Club took third with 19.
"Our team is doing really, really well -- the kids, the women, the men," Koa Kai head coach Joe Kim said. "We just got a lot of people ... and we put the best we can in every crew. ... We're lucky that way."
With its third straight win in the prestigious women's senior race, one in the women's freshman and two others, the Waikiki Beachboys easily beat Na Keiki O Ka Moi (14) and Kamehameha (8) for the A title.
To go along with the club's trifecta of A wins, the women seniors' own trifecta out of the gate is particularly significant. The Beachboys (Jennifer Bowers, Sue Brown, Valerie Hershey, Erin Offenhauser, Meredith Takara and Kelsa Teeters) have been slaughtering Hui Waa competition this year, and yesterday beat runner-up Lokahi by a half-minute, 13:07.16 to 13:37.22.
Prior to this season, no crew other than one from perennial association power Lokahi had won the race since 1997.
Lokahi is not racing with its full complement of women paddlers this year -- which has contributed to the club finishing third in AAA in all three regattas.
According to the Beachboys, this doesn't diminish the fact that their times so far this year compare well among the best in the state at 1.5 miles.
"We had a lot of girls do their homework in the offseason, so we came into this season really ready," said Brown, who also serves as the coach of the crew. But "I would not call it a winning streak; Lokahi had the winning streak."
