Puna followed its game plan to perfection: paddle with teamwork and believe that anything is possible. ADVERTISING Puna followed its game plan to perfection: paddle with teamwork and believe that anything is possible. That’s something head coach Afa Tuaolo would
Puna followed its game plan to perfection: paddle with teamwork and believe that anything is possible.
That’s something head coach Afa Tuaolo would preach to his Green Pride paddlers at every Moku O Hawaii Outrigger Canoe Racing Association regatta.
Last year, Puna pulled off one of the greatest upsets on any island to win the Aunty Maile Mauhili/Moku O Hawaii championships.
A year later, Green Pride doubled down and did it again in equally impressive fashion.
On a breezy Saturday at Hilo Bay, where the water looked distinctly green, Puna beat old rival Kai Opua by one point to win Division A (21-42 events).
The 65th annual Hawaii Canoe Racing Association state championships will be held Saturday, Aug. 6 at Oahu’s Keehi Lagoon.
The top two finishers in each event in the Moku O Hawaii standings earned the island’s two state lanes.
Puna scored 201 points to Kai Opua’s 200 points to capture the 11th annual Aunty Maile/Moku O Hawaii championships for a repeat with two sharp points of view.
Kai Opua got hit with a disqualification in the last race, event 42 the mixed men and women, and drew zero points.
That was one of three DQs for Big Blue, which defeated Green Pride by one point for the overall crown in 2002 at Kawaihae, delivering the first blow of heart-break, returned 14 years later to sender.
And as far as the Moku O Hawaii historians know, Puna is the only club to win the title other than Kai Opua, doing so in 2007, ’15 and this year.
From one perspective, Big Blue threw a thorn in its shoe and was its own worst enemy with three DQs. That’s three races with no points, never a good thing.
But as the great philosopher Bill Belichick once said, “It is what it is.”
If Belichick were a Green Pride paddling fan, he would bristle, “Kai Opua had all 42 races covered, and Puna had 39. Next question.”
Well, then how did Puna win?
Green Pride had one scratch, one DQ and three races not covered. A math genius is not needed to figure out that 39 beats 37 every day of the week.
“All the kids did very well,” Tuaolo said. “Some of our crews on the bubble (to make states) won. Our kids did great today. I’m proud of them.”
Jeremy Padayao is Puna’s youth coach, and he was also on the mixed men and women crew.
That mixed crew (Padayao, Kim Kimi, Breeani Sumera-Lee, Alana Cabatu, Colby Nicolas, Kekoa Sumera-Lee) won the half-mile race in 3:59.60 to Kai Ehitu’s 4:00.02. (Kai Opua’s DQ finish was 4:17.90, which would have been good for fifth and eight points.)
Padayao has been with Green Pride for nine years, including seven as a coach. He joined Puna as a novice paddler at 26 years old. He’s now 34 and sounds like Afa.
“It’s teamwork. They’ve got to believe they can do it. It’s about the team, everybody working together,” Padayao said. “That’s what it takes to win, working together. The thing that Afa taught us is teamwork. Without it, nothing is going to happen. You have to believe you can.”
Last year in the youth races (ages 12-18), Big Blue bolted to a 63-26 point cushion. That’s a healthy 37-point separation. Puna had no crews in five races.
A year later, Kai Opua led Puna 57 to 34 points after the youth events. That’s a fairly manageable 23-point deficit with 26 races left.
However, from breakfast to lunch time, Puna still couldn’t close the gap.
Any Las Vegas oddsmaker would have bet the house Green Pride was in store for second, especially trailing Big Blue 141 to 113 points with a dozen races left.
That’s a 28-point cushion. Remember it’s not football where a touchdown gets you six points and you’re back in the game.
Kai Opua didn’t need to beat Puna in the late races — Puna’s strength. Big Blue just had to stick close, and, most of all, chiefs Uncle Bo Campos and Mike Atwood just needed their paddlers to race clean.
The best strategy is to win the races with a lot of crews. That’s where the points are. When big points are sitting in the water, Puna turns into a hungry shark.
Green Pride pocketed 24 medals of color, including 15 gold. Big Blue had 28 medals, including 13 gold. Kai Ehitu had 16 medals, including seven gold.
If the medal count is close, any time someone wins other than Kai Opua it hurts Big Blue like a thorn in the shoe.
That’s because Puna goes on its point feeding frenzy late in the day.
In the last eight races, Green Pride seized six golds and outscored Big Blue, 72 to 41 points. Kai Opua had no gold and a few cavities with a seventh and two fifth-place finishes.
Puna won the women and men 50, mixed 60 and 55, men 40, and the mixed men and women, the last race of the day.
Going 6 of 8, that’s a .750 batting average. Ted Williams would be proud of that. For the Green Pride paddlers of Puna, that’s old hat.
As coach Afa and Padayao would point out, when you believe in teamwork, anything is possible — even the 11th annual Aunty Maile/Moku O Hawaii crown, which goes down in the books as one of the greatest ever.
