Kaiser boys, Pearl City girls capture OIA soft tennis championships
By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer
In the sport of soft tennis, you often don't know which way the squishy ball is going to bounce.
But for the third year in a row, it bounced the right way for Kaiser High School's boys team. The Cougars captured their third straight O'ahu Interscholastic Association championship on Nov. 18 at Waipahu.
Kaiser's team of Fuyuki Samejima and Bryne Nagata took the title, with Samejima winning his second straight first-place medal. Samejima teamed with Isaac Baldwin, who graduated last year, to win the 2001 championship.
Pearl City sophomore Nicole Sakai and senior Jessica Lum won the girls championship.
The sport only has doubles competition.
"Last year I could rely on Isaac a lot, because he knew the game a lot more than I did," said Samejima, a senior. "This year, it came more naturally."
Soft tennis is similar to the traditional game, but the racquet is slightly smaller and the ball is more like a racquet ball — smaller and with no "skin." It's also very squeezable.
Thus, the swing is different from regular tennis, too.
"The ball bounces lower and spins a different way," Samejima said. "It's hard to hit it fast."
Because of the differences, not all soft tennis players come from the traditional game.
"A lot of players do both — regular tennis and soft tennis, but for us we live and breath soft tennis five days a week during the season," Kaiser coach Kristie Yamamoto said. "The players commit the time, putting in extra hours after practice."
Soft tennis matches are shorter than those in regular tennis, with only one set played until the first team wins five games. A team also does not need to win the set by two games.
There currently are 14 OIA teams participating.
VOLLEYBALL
ASICS tryouts: The ASICS Rainbows Hawai'i volleyball club will hold tryouts for the 2003 season Saturday at Kalani High School gym.
The registration cost is $10 per athlete. The boys tryout times are noon-2 p.m. for 14-year-olds, 2-4 p.m. for 16s and 4-6 p.m. for 17s and 18s. For the girls 16s and 18s, the tryout time is 5-7 p.m.
Athletes are asked to show up 30 minutes prior to the tryout to allow time for registration and warmups.
More information is available at the club's Web site: www.eteamz.com/ASICSRainbowsHawaii/
Age definitions, as determined by USA volleyball, are as follows:
- 18-and-Under Division: Players born on or after Sept. 1, 1984 or on or after Sept. 1, 1983 and a high school student during some part of the current academic year
- 17-and-Under: Players born on or after Sept.1, 1985
- 16-and-Under: Players born on or after Sept. 1, 1986
- 15-and-Under: Players born on or after Sept. 1, 1987
- 14-and-Under: Players born on or after Sept. 1, 1988
SWIMMING
Tops in nation: Wailuku's Kalani Rosell of Kamehameha Maui has the top 100-meter breaststroke time in the country for 11- to 12-year-old boys.
His time of 1 minute 12.98 seconds was recorded at the Western Zones Regional Championships in Los Angeles in August. Rosell is also second in the nation in the 50-meter breaststroke (33.88) after winning his age group's Western Zone competition.
