Football not only game in town
By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer
Football isn't the only sport that is drawing student-athletes from Hawai'i to California's Menlo College.
First-team all-state boys soccer player Landon Beers of Kaiser High, the runaway goal-scoring champion of his league last winter with 16, is playing for the Oaks.
Beers is a versatile fellow. He was boys soccer Player of the Year in the O'ahu Interscholastic Association's Eastern Division and a first-team All-OIA White Division defensive back in football, even though he was 5 feet 4 and 130 pounds. He played seven different positions in football, ranging from cornerback to running back.
Football and soccer are both played during the fall in college so Beers had to pick one.
Bradley Awaya (Kalani) and Dai Hino (McKinley) also are on the men's soccer team.
Five Hawai'i high school graduates are on the men's wrestling team and the new women's wrestling team is making a recruiting push here.
Sophomore 125-pounder Troy Takahashi, a two-time state champion for St. Louis School, qualified for the NAIA national tournament last winter. In the same weight division are redshirt sophomore Benjamin Cansibog (Wai'anae '00) and freshman Brenden Lincoln (St. Louis '02).
Another 2002 St. Louis graduate, Daniel Rodriguez (157 pounds), and freshman heavyweight Micah Palmerton (Kamehameha) are also competing.
Menlo's year-old women's wrestling team, coached by former USA Olympic team coach Lee Allen, will include Tanya Miyasaki (Castle '02), a state champion and Wrestling USA Magazine 105-pound All-American. Miyasaki also is playing soccer this fall.
Allen also signed U.S. Girls national 138-pound champion Shani Alvarado (Moanalua), a two-time state champion, but she has deferred her matriculation until at least the spring semester.
At least three other top female wrestlers that Allen thought would attend Menlo have changed their minds and are staying home, at least for now.
Menlo's women's volleyball roster includes sophomore Lynea Campbell-Dehmer (Laupahoehoe '00), defensive specialist Kehaulani Marciel (Kamehameha, of Kailua) and starting setter Kari Shimomura (McKinley '02).
Menlo's volleyball and tennis coach is Bill Imwalle, a tennis pro at Big Island resorts for 20 years until 2001 and former pro beach and All-America (Long Beach State) volleyball player.
Shannon Riley (Maryknoll '02) and Nalu Perkins (Kamehameha '02) are on Menlo's women's and men's basketball rosters, respectively.
Spring sports rosters have not been compiled yet.
