OIA launches girls water polo season tomorrow

By Dennis Anderson
Advertiser Staff Writer

Girls water polo, one of the nation's fastest-growing team sports, makes its official debut in O'ahu's public schools tomorrow.

And a state championship might be only a year away.

The OIA will launch its first sanctioned girls water polo season with 11 teams. Three other schools wanted to join, but didn't get their programs organized by the cutoff date, a league source said.

The schools with teams are: 'Aiea, Castle, Kahuku, Kaimuki, Kalani, Kapolei, Kaiser, Leilehua, Moanalua, Roosevelt and Waialua.

Games will be played at Brigham Young University-Hawai'i, Roosevelt, Kaiser and Kaimuki high school pools with most games on Saturdays and some on Wednesdays. Playoffs for the championship will be held May 7 and 10 at University of Hawai'i.

Goalkeeper Trudianne Huish, after five years playing on Kahuku's club team, said, "I'm way excited to have an actual OIA championship."

The private-school Interscholastic League of Honolulu has had a four-team girls league for six years and the Big Island converted its club league into a sanctioned league last year with six teams.

The Hawai'i High School Athletic Association requires three of its five leagues to sponsor a sport for a state championship to be held. Sometimes it takes years for a new sport to be considered but administrators sensitive to Title IX requirements tend to push girls' sports through quickly.

Kahuku High was the pioneer of all-girls water polo on O'ahu with the first club team in 1993-94 and a year later, an informal co-ed public high school league was formed.

There has been a girls public high school league since 1996 but it, too, was informal with girls from several schools joining to make a single team in some cases. Kahuku never lost a game in that league.

Diane Hosaka, one of the adults who championed creation of the league, said girls water polo "is exploding all over the Mainland."

According to U.S. Water Polo, the number of high-school teams for girls jumped from 120 in 1994 to 734 in 2001. The number of NCAA teams doubled to 50 between 1996 and 2002.

"Water polo is providing lots of girls the opportunity go to college because of the scholarships that are offered," Hosaka said.

NOTES: USA Water Polo Hawai'i chairman John Nielson, Leilehua coach Nathan Higa, Kapolei coach Dexter Lee and Roosevelt coach Susan Nishioka were among the prime movers to help establish the OIA league, Diane Hosaka said. ... Three O'ahu public school graduates are playing in this weekend's Rainbow Challenge tournament at University of Hawai'i. Meris Bantilan-Smith, who waged a letter-writing campaign for a sanctioned league during her senior year at Kahuku in 2000, plays for UC-San Diego while Roosevelt grad Darcy Scott-Hosaka and Kahuku grad Makana Whitford are scholarship players for Hawai'i. ... Trudianne Huish plans to join the club team at Brigham Young-Hawai'i next year. She hopes BYUH will elevate its program to varsity status with scholarships.