7 girls wrestlers from Hawai'i are All-Americans | The Honolulu Advertiser

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7 girls wrestlers from Hawai'i are All-Americans | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Thursday, July 10, 2003

ISLE FILE
7 girls wrestlers from Hawai'i are All-Americans

Advertiser Staff

Seven girls from Hawai'i yesterday were named to TheMat.com/Asics Girls High School All-American Wrestling team and for the first time, two were picked on the first team.

Four-time state champion Caylene Valdez and Debbi Sakai, recent graduates of Moanalua and Mililani, respectively, were selected to the first team.

Valdez and Sakai both won U.S. Girls Wrestling Association national championships in Michigan on March 30 and Sakai also won a Fila Junior National title.

Valdez said she will attend Menlo (Calif.) College while Sakai is headed for Missouri Valley College.

Four Hawai'i girls were chosen on the third team: U.S. Girls runner-up Nicole Fonda from Kahuku High, two-time state champion and Fila Cadet national champion Danyelle Hedin from Kailua High, state champion and U.S. Girls third-placer Elizabeth Torres from Kahuku High and state champion Jasmine Norman from Kealakehe High.

Punahou's Naomi Karlen won honorable mention.

TheMat.com is the Web site of USA Wrestling, which operates the U.S. National and Olympic teams.

VOLLEYBALL

Berg best: Lindsey Berg of Honolulu was honored as Best Setter after she helped the U.S. women's national volleyball team win the Pan American Cup tournament last weekend in Saltillo, Mexico.

Team USA qualified for the 2004 FIVB World Grand Prix and had a 5-0 record in the tournament, beating the Dominican Republic in three games in the final. The Dominican Republic, third-place Cuba and fourth-place Brazil also qualified for next year's World Grand Prix from the Americas.

Berg is a 1998 Punahou School and 2001 University of Minnesota graduate.

Beach volleyball: Stein Metzger and Kevin Wong, former Punahou and UCLA teammates, won $6,000 for finishing fifth last weekend in the Norway Open at Stavanger, Norway.

Metzger and Wong, who earned a top seed in the round of 16 after cruising through pool play with a 3-0 record, were the top American finishers out of four teams.

Sean Scott, a Punahou and University of Hawai'i alumnus, and Todd Rogers tied for 17th place with a 1-2 record in pool play.

TRACK AND FIELD

UH's Murray wins discus: The University of Hawai'i's Novelle Murray won the discus at the Canadian Junior Nationals in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, last weekend.

Her throw was 46.79 meters (154.4 feet).

Murray was the Western Athletic Conference champion in the discus.

BASKETBALL

Ex-BYUH star cut by Nuggets: Former Brigham Young-Hawai'i basketball standout Alexus Foyle was one of 11 players cut from the Denver Nuggets summer roster yesterday.

Foyle, who finished second among all NCAA Division II players with 26.7 points per game last season, was attempting to make the Denver roster as a free agent.

Former University of Hawai'i standout Predrag Savovic is still competing for a roster spot with the Nuggets. Savovic was a reserve for Denver as a rookie last season.

Yuta Tabuse, another former BYUH player, is playing in the Summer Pro League in Long Beach, Calif., with the Dallas Mavericks' summer team. Tabuse, a 5-foot-8 point guard from Japan, last played at BYUH in 2002. He played in a Japanese professional league last season.

BOXING

Guillermo in Pan Am camp: Wai'anae's Samson Guillermo is currently participating in the Pan American Training Camp in Colorado in preparation for the 2003 Pan American Games next month, according to USA Boxing.

The training camp at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., runs until July 25 and will prepare Guillermo and his teammates for the Pan American Games on Aug. 1-17 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Boxing will begin Aug. 7.

Guillermo won the 2003 Everlast U.S. Championship and U.S. Challenge Bantamweight (119 pounds) National Champion.

The U.S. team will be led by head coach Anthony Bradley of Hope Mills, N.C.

YACHTING

Pegasus takes lead: Pegasus overtook Pyewacket for the lead in Division I yesterday in the 42nd Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Hawai'i.

Pegasus owner/skipper Philippe Kahn and Pyewacket skipper Roy E. Disney encountered light winds.

Pegasus sailed 265 miles in a 24-hour span, but that was 31 miles more than Pyewacket.

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