Chargers Set Focus On State Title
By Jack Danilewicz
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Del.icio.usThe Pearl City boys wrestling team has already proven itself this season in the all-important area of mental toughness, to hear head coach Mike Lee tell it, but he hopes they are poised for their biggest effort this weekend at the state wrestling championships at Blaisdell Arena.
“I think it (the state meet) is (about) how you handle it mentally and how focused you are,” said Lee.“There are a lot of distractions at states. Focus is the key to me.
“It is a totally different animal,” he added. “Hopefully, they’ll be at their peak.”
The Chargers recently captured their seventh straight OIA Red West title and were expected to be a factor in the overall league championships last weekend, which included East schools. The veteran coach could count Pearl City’s most recent Red West title among their more impressive, perhaps, in that it was hardly a given they’d emerge first.
“We definitely were not the favorites - and this was one of the few years that we weren’t. They did a great job and wrestled above themselves, and good things happen when you do that. They’re pretty tough. When it is time to be focused, they are.”
Pearl City’s strength is not just in the quality of its wrestlers, but in the quantity of its quality wrestlers, as 14 members of its boys team finished in the top six in the Red West, individually, to outlast second-place Campbell and Mililani, which finished third. All fourteen were hoping to finish in the top six over the weekend in the overall OIA championships, which would have secured individual berths for this weekend’s state meet.
Leading the way is junior Raynald Cooper III, a defending state champion at 160 pounds. He was one of two Chargers to win the Red West individual title recently along with Dustin Ching in the 189-pound class.
“He’s a beast,” Lee said of Cooper. “His father has instilled a great work ethic in him. He’s an unbelievably hard worker. He does everything at 110 percent, and he trained so much with his father when he was younger.”
Ching is a senior and four-year letterman. He will be looking to close out his prep career in style this weekend.“Dustin doesn’t let anything phase him - he takes things as they come. He has fun in everything that he does, and wrestling is something that he enjoys.”
Pearl City also had four wrestlers - Devin Ching (285), Alan Ochoa (215), Francisco Rivera (120) and Jared Ching (108) - finish as the league runners-up in Red West. All figure to be factors in their individual weight classes this weekend at states.
“Devin is very under-sized for his weight class (285) - he usually weighs in at about 240 - but he has a lot of heart,” Lee said.“Alan is also undersized in that he’s shorter than everyone he wrestles, but he keeps coming back. Nothing deters him. Francisco just tries real hard. Jared expects to win every time, regardless of who he faces.”
Also turning in impressive season performances were Robert Pedro Jr. (135; 3rd), Dustin-Donovan Bataya (145; 3rd), Anthony Clemente (114; 3rd), Austin Hayashi (125; 4th), Cameron Hayashi (130; 4th), Sean Agpaoa (140; 5th), Shayne Biven (152; 5th) and Kupono Allen (171; 6th).
With its collection of talent, molding “a team mind-set” is usually no small task for the Chargers, but Lee liked his team’s cohesiveness this season.
“They’re all different personalities,” he said, “but for some reason, they pulled it out (in the Red West) through their work ethic and by sticking together.”
Preliminary rounds for the state meet begin at 10 a.m. Friday. The semifinals and championship rounds are set for 10 a.m. Saturday.
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