Moanalua alum wins Can-Am title
By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer
After exactly a year away from competition for shoulder surgery, rehabilitation and rest, Moanalua High graduate Stephany Lee proved she still has the heart of a champion.
Lee won the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association Can-Am (Canadian-American) collegiate championships last weekend in both the folkstyle she wrestled throughout high school and in freestyle — which she had never wrestled before.
Last spring, Lee won her third straight Hawai'i high school girls wrestling championship and her first USGWA national high school championship. After graduation from Moanalua, she had arthroscopic surgery in June to relieve the shoulder pain she had endured for three years because of stretched tendons and a partially torn labrum that were aggravated repeatedly.
Because of her surgery, Lee had to defer acceptance of a scholarship to Missouri Valley College. She tried to satisfy her appetite for wrestling by working as an assistant coach at Farrington.
Last week, Lee and her coaches from Hawai'i USA Wrestling decided to "test the waters" at the USGWA championships in Lake Orion, Mich.
Lee won nine matches and two championships in two days.
In freestyle — the first time she has wrestled the style used by colleges and in the Olympics — Lee won her first match by a "technical fall" score of 14-3, and the next three by first-round pins. In her final match of the 154-pound division, Lee handled World Team Trials qualifier Mollie Keith of Missouri Valley, 7-2.
"Freestyle is more fun," Lee said. "It's like the name implies, more freedom, not as many restrictions on holds you can use."
The next day she wrestled in the more familiar folkstyle division, in which the 154- and 145-pound weight classes were combined. Lee won by a pin, by decisions of 16-0 and 10-1 and beat Kelly Branham of Missouri Valley in the final, 11-8.
"There was a little bit of pain, but nothing serious," Lee said.
Lee has entered USA Wrestling's University Nationals April 11-13, the U.S. Senior Women's National Championships in Las Vegas May 8-10 and has qualified for the World Team Trials in June at 147.5 pounds.
"I want to go to the Olympics," she said. "If I am not picked for the Olympic Training Center, I will go to Missouri Valley."
• Remiticado third: Iolani grad Jill Remiticado of Oregon's Pacific University lost a national tournament match for the first time. Remiticado was trying for her fourth straight USGWA national championship, but finished third at 121 pounds in freestyle.
• Leigh Jaynes of Wahiawa and Missouri Valley won the 138-pound freestyle championship with an overtime pin. Mid-Pacific grad Jennifer Miyahara of Menlo finished sixth, losing her final on a 90-second pin.
• Radford grad Donell Bradley of Missouri Valley placed third in both folkstyle and freestyle at 165 pounds.
• Castle grad Tanya Miyasaki of Menlo beat another Castle grad, Cathy Migita of the Rainbow Wahine Club, 8-1, en route to sixth place at 121 pounds; Migita took seventh and followed with third in folkstyle.
• Castle grad Kristin Fujioka of Pacific (107 pounds) had to withdraw from freestyle after she aggravated a knee injury.
