Pearl City Girls Judo A Young But Formidable Team
By Jack Danilewicz
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Del.icio.usTeams hoping to give defending girls judo champion Pearl City stern competition at this Saturday’s Oahu Interscholastic Association championships will have to do more than out-execute the Chargers. They’ll have to outlast them as well.
“Where we have an advantage is that in the last three or four weight classes, we have some of our best players,” said Pearl City coach Robin Puahala, whose team has lost only two matches all season in the last four weight classes. “Last year, we needed them to come through at the end (of the OIA finals), and they did.”
For most of the recently completed season, the Chargers dominated their team competitions in all weight classes. The stakes are higher this weekend, however, as well as in the much-anticipated Hawaii state judo championships, which will follow next week at University of Hawaii.
Indeed, while the Chargers are driven to repeat as overall OIA champions (they recently wrapped up another West title as well), their near-miss in May’s state tournament has provided even more motivation throughout this season, according to Puahala. The Chargers finished only five points behind state champion McKinley, whom they had edged in the OIA Tournament a week earlier, settling for a fourth-place tie with Iolani.
“It (the state tourney) was a tight race,” Puahala said. “If any one of our three who made the finals had won their match, we would have been state champions. That has made them all a little more hungry, knowing how close they were last year.”
This weekend’s OIA team championships, which will take place at 3:30 p.m. at Leilehua, figure to be the perfect tune-up for next week’s state tournament. As the top seed out of the West, the Chargers will likely be on the receiving end of every opponent’s best effort.
“Our team looks good, but we can’t look past anyone,” said Puahala, who is assisted by coaches Jaycee Corpuz, Jason Plunkett, Jordan Yokoyama and Devin Yoshinaka.“They’re all good teams now. If we can get that far, there’s a good chance we would meet McKinley again in the finals.”
Although they dominated their regular season, the Chargers are in fact one of the younger teams in the West with a roster made up of 18 freshmen and sophomores, three juniors and only two seniors.
For their part, their lone seniors - Jessica Domingo and Kasey Fujihara - are among the best in the state at their respective weight classes and have provided key leadership this season.
Fujihara was the OIA champion in the 220-pound weight class and has finished as the state tournament runner-up each of the last three years. Domingo was the top seed in the 115-pound weight class, heading into last weekend’s OIA individuals. She finished third in the state in the 103-pound class last May. Both entered last weekend’s OIA individual championships with unbeaten 12-0 records in 2008.
“Everyone who was in Kasey’s class (last year) has cleared out, so she looks to be the front-runner this year,” Puahala said of Fujihara, whose sister Kelly was a state champion at Pearl City in 2005. “Experience is her strength. She finds a way to win. This is the best I’ve seen her look in her four years here.
“Jessica leads by example,” he added.“She’s good overall. She has a 3.9 (grade-point average) and she’s involved in a lot of clubs, but she still manages to come out and practice judo five days a week.”
Sophomores Mei Ling Keiki (172) and freshman Apelila Hokana (122) also took undefeated records into the weekend, while sophomores Hazel Aspern (98), Kelly Ancheta (109) and Jamilyn Chur (154) all had been defeated just once.
Keiki, who finished third in the state last season, serves as one of the Chargers’ co-captains along with Domingo.
“We had never promoted an underclassman to captain before, but we did with her,” Puahala said of Keiki. “They all look up to her. Her strength is hard to keep up with. None of her matches has gone past a minute.”
The Chargers girls judo program is seeking its fourth OIA team title in the last five years and their sixth overall.
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