Four Knights Toughening Up For State Tennis Rounds

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OIA tennis champions Genoa Morton, Colin Fujishige
and Elora Morton. Photo from Bruce D. Lee.

Peak performance,as an old adage goes, begins in the head.

As he prepared members of his Castle boys and girls tennis teams for this week’s Carl Smith Ball Tennis State Championships on Maui, Knights coach Bruce Lee had those sentiments very much in mind.

“This being a small place, most of the players end up playing each other (at some point),“Lee said.“The kids have usually seen each other (by the time of the state tournament). What it comes down to at the state tournament is that you have to be mentally tough.Whoever’s mentally strongest will come out the winner.”

Lee will take four Castle athletes - singles players Colin Fujishige and Desiree Adur and the girls doubles team of Genoa and Elora Morton - to the tourney this week. A year ago, the Knights had their best finish ever at states with Stephen Royalty and Aaron Kuroso both reaching the quarter-finals. The pair have moved on to college, but still figure big within the Knights’ program, having signed on as volunteer coaches.

“They come out and help at practice by playing against Genoa and Elora,“Lee said.“They (the sisters) are playing against stronger competition than they’ll see at the state tournament.”

The Morton sisters enter the state tournament undefeated at 15-0 and figure to be one of the more formidable doubles teams in the event. Genoa is a senior, while Elora is a sophomore with two more years of high school eligibility remaining.

“They complement each other,” Lee said. “Genoa is a strong player - she serves well, and she hits hard. Elora is more of a finesse player. In addition to playing for Castle, they also work with Arnold Yuen of Team Kailua.

“Their father Dana also spends a lot of time working with the girls,” he added. “He’s the underlying strong point of their play. He deserves a lot of the credit for the girls’ (successes).”

The Mortons enter the state tournament seeded sixth. They are the only pair among seeded teams from the Oahu Interscholastic Association. That earned them a first-round bye on Wednesday. The pair will play their first match at 8 a.m. Thursday at Wailea Tennis Club against a team to be determined during first-round matches Wednesday.

Fujishige enters his first match at 10 a.m. Thursday at Kalama Park Tennis Courts (versus a player to be determined later) seeded eighth in the boys singles division. Should he advance a round, the bracket is set up so another matchup with McKinley’s Matt Tavares is likely.The pair met three times this season with Fujishige winning twice, including a match for the OIA’s Individual Championships in April.

“He has the height (6 feet) and has a good serve and volley game,” Lee said of Fujishige,whose personal coach is Van Okagi of Leilehua. “People have to hit really good shots to beat him. He’s been able to dictate the pace of the game against everyone he’s played. He normally wins in straight sets.”

Fujishige’s only loss of the season was April 13 to Tavares in the OIA Eastern Division Final.

Adur, who is not seeded, enters her Wednesday match at 2:30 p.m. at Wailea Tennis Club against Waiakea’s Matsumi Kanzawa, having gone 10-1 this season in the singles division.

“She’s a pretty steady player,“Lee said.“Like Colin, she’s tall (5 feet 11 inches) - she has a good serve, and she’s a consistent baseline player. She’ll stay out there two or three hours to win a match. She’s a smart girl. She’ll be attending HPU on an academic scholarship.”

Far from tapering off this post-season, the Knights have seen the pace of their practices pick up considerably in the two weeks prior to this week’s tournament.

“They’ve gone through more intensive practices (than usual).We have 30 players normally using the courts. Now, we have only the four, so we’re spending a lot more time with the four. We’ve done a lot of conditioning and a lot of hitting,trying to become more consistent.”