By KEVIN JAKAHI Tribune-Herald sports writer ADVERTISING It was a heart-pounding sprint to the finish for all three races, with high drama and an emotionally charged atmosphere sharing equal roles in the day’s excitement at the canoe paddling state championships.
By KEVIN JAKAHI
Tribune-Herald sports writer
It was a heart-pounding sprint to the finish for all three races, with high drama and an emotionally charged atmosphere sharing equal roles in the day’s excitement at the canoe paddling state championships.
For the hometown fans, the Big Island Interscholastic Federation crews had a bad day at the office. No one placed in the half-mile boys, girls or mixed races on a slightly windy, overcast Friday at Hilo Bay.
Try as it might, the BIIF just couldn’t muster much on its home course. Honokaa took seventh and Kealakehe eighth in the girls finals. The boys and mixed championships were filled with visitors. The Parker mixed team finished sixth.
But for the purists, the racing, especially the furious finishes, couldn’t have gone better. Everything was so close, particularly the jockeying of the top two spots between Interscholastic League Honolulu schools in all three events.
The biggest surprise was Punahou edging Kamehameha-Kapalama in a boys race by the slimmest of margins, 3 minutes and 34.825 seconds to 3:34.959.
History was on Kamehameha-Kapalama’s side. And not just that, but one other important thing, too.
During the ILH season, the Warriors won five regattas, including the league championship, a 6-mile jaunt. The Buffanblu captured one ILH meet. (The BIIF and Oahu Interscholastic Association run half-mile regattas.)
Even more surprising was Punahou’s lack of experience. Only senior Aaron Madden is a returning starter. He was the lead stroker throughout the season, but moved to the No. 5 seat for the state championships.
Sophomore stroker Walker Bolan set a good sprinter’s pace, and junior steersman Keanu Chee navigated Punahou’s steady glide powered by Madden, senior Austin Ayer, sophomore Oliver Lewis, and junior Kaimana Rosso.
One key addition was not a paddler, but an assistant — Eric Abbott, a 2006 Punahou graduate and a former U.S. national team K1 kayak paddler.
“He came aboard to help at the junior varsity level, but I wanted to harness his knowledge in the area of sprint training,” said Punahou coach Rocky Higgins, who’s been part of the school’s paddling program the last 22 years. “He brought positive energy and made them realize they could go beyond themselves. We told them, ‘After tomorrow, there’s no more paddling, so leave it all on the water.’
“Madden was our original stroker. But in seat 5, he could see what No. 1 (Bolan) and 3 (Lewis) were doing. Both are sophomores. He felt he could help them and he did. He felt in the best interest of the crew he would make that change. The kids pulled it all together and pushed to go beyond themselves.”
Meanwhile, Abbott, who won the 32-mile Molokai-to-Oahu Paddleboard World Championships prone division last August, expects more of the same next season.
“Kamehameha has a lot of juniors and we’ve got four of six returning next season,” he said. “It’s nice seeing our program grow.”
After the races were long over, both were in a relaxed mood. But that wasn’t the case for the normally cool-cucumber Higgins, who coached Punahou to the boys state title in 2002, the first year of statewide competition.
“Eric asked me how I stayed so relaxed. Eric is so competitive he still gets in that heat of the moment,” Higgins said. “But when we were in that final push, 100 yards to go, it hit me. It was an awesome finish. It was exhilarating. It’s one of those moments that’s hard to capture in words.”
It’s no surprise Pac-5 won the girls race, even if it was nail-biter over Kamehameha-Kapalama, 4:01.936 to 4:02.413. The Wolfpack grabbed gold in 2010, beating the Warriors.
At least Kamehameha-Kapalama didn’t get blanked, winning the mixed title over Punahou in another thriller, 3:43.430 to 3:43.620, much like the boys race, nearly too close to call by the human eye.
All those slim scores underscored the difficulty in winning a state title, let alone three as the Warriors did a year ago at Keehi Lagoon. Still, they were in the hunt all day long. Two silvers and a gold can’t be considered a bad haul.
“Obviously, we came to win,” Kamehameha-Kapalama coach Kalama Heine said. “I thought our chances were really good. We’ve been training really hard. All you can do is give your best and that’s what we did.
“The difference in the boys race was Punahou put in their strongest six in a sprint and came out on top.”
Higgins and Abbott might add that their guys also paddled beyond themselves.
