Weather postpones state championships

Advertiser Staff

Bad weather postponed yesterday's state high school canoe paddling championships and condensed the two-day state swimming championships into a one-day event.

The Hawai'i High School Athletic Association/First Hawaiian Bank canoe paddling championships, originally scheduled for yesterday, has been rescheduled for 8 a.m. today at Ke'ehi Lagoon.

The HHSAA/Local Motion swimming championships, scheduled yesterday at Coach Soichi Sakamoto Pool in Wailuku, Maui, will be condensed into a one-day event starting today at 10 a.m.

Thundershowers and rough surf pounded O'ahu yesterday. Showers and possible thunderstorms were forecast for O'ahu and Maui today, according to the National Weather Service.

According to HHSAA officials, most of the Neighbor Island canoe paddling teams were staying over the weekend to participate in another paddling meet on O'ahu.

"The weather situation is unfortunate, but the Neighbor Island schools are being very understanding of the situation," said Keith Amemiya, executive director of the HHSAA.

If conditions do not permit holding the canoe races today, this year's championships will be canceled, according to Hartwell Lee Loy, canoe paddling coordinator for the HHSAA.

The event features 24 races and three divisions. Champions are supposed to be crowned in boys, girls and mixed teams.

In swimming and diving, 67 trial heats were to be held in 22 swimming events yesterday plus preliminary rounds of 1-meter diving.

Instead, the same number of races will be held today, but qualifiers for the finals will be determined by time rather than place finished.

"The fastest eight qualifiers in each event will be placed in the last heat of each event," Lynette Chew of the HHSAA seeding committee told HHSAA.org.

Records fall in diving: St. Andrew's sophomore Aleia Monden and Punahou junior Drew Wallace set meet records in the 1-meter diving competition of the Hawai'i High School Athletic Association/ Local Motion championships yesterday at Coach Soichi Sakamoto Pool at Wailuku, Maui.

Monden won her second consecutive championship, scoring 471.65 points to erase the mark of 452.40 set in 1983 by the late Sandra Serai of University High. Serai died during multiple-organ transplant surgery last year.

Wallace broke his own meet record with 484.50 points. He set the old mark of 439.65 last year.