---

SPECIAL TO THE STAR-BULLETIN Mandy Pascual is graceful on the beam, but is so aggressive on the uneven bars that it scares her coach.

---

Broken bones, higher
scores for Pascual

Maryland’s Mandy Pascual has had
many injuries and chronic pain,
but she loves being a college gymnast

MANDY Pascual endures pain almost every day at the University of Maryland from 10 years of gymnastics injuries.

But she says she would not have traded her college sports experience, even if she had not qualified for Saturday's NCAA Regional Championships.

"I can't imagine the college experience without being involved in athletics," says Pascual, a 2001 Punahou graduate from Aiea.

She shares Maryland's high-point record on uneven parallel bars of 9.925 points, which she has hit three times. That's 0.075 of one point from perfection.

Her best score this season has been 9.825 twice, which helped earn her a trip to the regional at the University of Florida on Saturday.

Pascual's medical history includes a fractured back (L5 vertebrae) when she landed awkwardly on a dismount from the bar when she was 12 years old; a broken foot and dislocated ankle during an exhibition at the Punahou Carnival in 2001; and a fracture of the navicular bone in the same foot discovered in an MRI months later.

She has had three operations and had two pins in her right ankle for a while. Bone marrow from her shin was injected into her right foot.

For a time, after she got off crutches, she wore a protective boot except when she was practicing or competing.

"I can tell you when it is going to rain," Pascual says brightly of the pain, which is never far beneath the surface but which she only reluctantly acknowledges.

"It's chronic, but not extreme now," she says, "a good day, bad day kind of thing, I have to roll with it."

But Pascual has no doubt that "the experience I have had at Maryland is worth the sacrifice. "

"Being a collegiate athlete gave me an opportunity that few people are offered and overall I don't see my foot injury as something that has prevented me from doing something that I wanted to do.

"I have grown more as a person by learning to make the best of my situation. As an athlete I have learned to work with what I had and make the best of it, striving to improve every day."

Coach Bob Nelligan says Pascual has done just that.

"She is getting better on a daily basis," he says, and if she can avoid aggravating her foot injury, "she could have a big senior year. The promise is definitely there.

"She is aggressive, has a beautiful body line, and pays incredible attention to detail. Her technique is absolutely gorgeous to watch," Nelligan said.

"You would never have a sense of how difficult uneven bars can be when you watch her work."

"I never have had to say to Mandy, 'Get up on the bars and let's go.' Usually it is, 'Could you please get down, you're scaring us.'

"If she had a good pair of wheels, you would be calling me every week for comments."

Pascual had to redshirt her freshman year at Maryland because of her surgeries, and plans to use that year of eligibility and her full athletic scholarship next season while she earns a second degree.

She will earn her first degree, in chemical engineering, this spring. Her second will be in biochemistry.

Her grade-point average is above 3.9 (a couple of B-plusses among the A's).

Next year she will apply to medical schools, including the University of Hawaii.

"It would be amazing to go to medical school and be in Hawaii," she said.

Gym notes: Mandy Pascual and two-time NCAA wrestling champion Travis Lee of Cornell were classmates through the sixth grade at Maemae School. They were Maemae's representatives in the Department of Education's Kid Fit competition at Aloha Stadium. ... Pascual hit one of her highest scores this season when Maryland competed on Maui in January.

---

BACK TO TOP
|

Kometani on 5-game
win streak for Waves

Senior Kea Kometani won his fifth decision in a row for Pepperdine (California) and was chosen co-Pitcher of the Month for March in the West Coast Conference.

Right-hander Kometani (Punahou, '01, of Kahala) is 5-0 with a 1.69 ERA in his last five outings.

For the season, he is 6-2 with a 2.54 ERA. In a team-leading 67.1 innings, Kometani has surrendered 75 hits, 19 earned runs and 16 walks, while striking out a team-high 51.

He is tied for third place on Pepperdine's career appearance list with 80 and should move into second place before this month ends.

His five straight victories include two over ranked teams -- No. 5 South Carolina and No. 30 Winthrop, and his last defeat was to then-No. 1 Tulane, 3-0, on Feb. 25.

Diablo Valley (California) JC

Freshman infielders Kepa Wong (Aiea, '04) and Johnny Gentry (Saint Louis, '04) put on a good show when their families flew to California last weekend to watch them play for the first time in college.

Wong drove in the winning run in the 10th inning as Diablo Valley beat Napa Valley on Thursday.

The next day, Gentry got two hits, scored four runs and drove in three, and Wong got two hits and scored twice in a 14-5 win over Los Medanos.

On Saturday, Wong hit a 400-foot solo home run to break up a no-hitter in the fifth inning of a 6-3 victory at Napa Valley.

Diablo Valley is coached by Carl Fraticelli (Kalaheo, '84).

Saddleback (California) JC

Freshman pitcher Kanekoa Texeira (Kamehameha, '04, of Kula) pitched five shutout innings against Reedley for his second collegiate victory.

He came back in his next start with five strong innings in a no-decision against Fullerton, giving up two runs on two hits.

Texeira is 2-0 and Saddleback, the defending state champion, is 18-4 under coach Jack Hodges (Kamehameha, '65).

Also playing for Saddleback are left-handed sophomore pitcher Morgan Kruger-Burgess (Kealakehe, of Holualoa), who defeated Cabrillo 7-1 in his last start, going 6 innings, and outfielder Ryan Leong (Mid-Pacific, '03), who joined the team in late January.

"Leong is slowly rounding himself into comfortability and will help us primarily off the bench this season," Hodges said.