Posted on: Sunday, May 16, 2004
Narido, Gora beat heat for singles titles
| • | Boys Track & Field: Punahou, Pearl City win state championship |
| • | Girls Track & Field: Buffanblu girls dethrone 2-time champion Iolani |
| • | Water Polo: Punahou wins inaugural girls championship, 7-3 |
| • | Round-Up: Punahou gets state baseball berth |
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
KOHALA COAST, Hawai'i — On a perfectly dry and painfully hot Kona day, Andy Narido and Kalei Gora were the last singles players standing at the Carlsmith Ball Hawai'i State High School Tennis Championships.
The 47th annual tournament was played at Mauna Lani Racquet Club, where it was survival of the fittest yesterday. When it ended just after high noon, Narido, the sixth-seeded Hilo High senior, and Gora, the top-seeded St. Francis sophomore, were energized by their breakout performances and state titles.
Opponents — and defending state champs — Robbie Lim (Punahou) and Heidi Kaloi (Kamehameha) were crippled with cramps. Both retired in the third set. Narido's winning score was 0-6, 6-4, 1-0 (ret.) and Gora's 6-1, 6-7 (6-8), 4-2 (ret.).
Punahou won both team championships, the boys for the 36th time and girls for the 30th. The boys, with six seniors including Lim, clinched their 14th straight title before the final day started.
Chris Iwamura and Nicholas Leong, headed to Santa Clara in the fall, beat teammates Michael Azuma and Ryan Laws (6-3, 3-6, 6-2) in an all-Punahou doubles final. It was Iwamura's third doubles title, and Leong's second.
All six Punahou seniors, and all but one of the Buffanblu's six senior girls, were in the school's original kindergarten tennis program.
Gora actually clinched it for the Punahou girls. Kamehameha had to win every match after the morning semifinals to have a chance of dethroning the Buffanblu.
Third-seeded Jessica Broadfoot and Adriann Gin captured the doubles title for Punahou, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, over Kamehameha's Brooke Doane and Lauren Shin. Every Punahou player who qualified scored at least one point.
Narido had to go three sets to win his semifinal, fighting off cramps. He added a teaspoon of salt to his Gatorade — "it might be nasty but it helps" — and ultimately had too much energy for Lim.
Narido "hit bottom" in the first set, but grimly hung on. When Lim started to cramp and called for an injury timeout up 3-1 in the second set, Narido saw it as a sign his perseverance — the heart of his game — would be rewarded.
"Then I could see my way out. I bounced back up," Narido said. "I tried to make him move a little more and lengthen the points."
At the end of the second set, Narido sprinted off the court for the break, rejuvenated by his rally and playing near-perfect tennis. A distraught Lim stood motionless in the court, unable to move.
He finally walked to his chair and put his head in the ice chest. He had nothing left in the third set and the match was stopped after Narido won his serve and Lim could not get through his.
Gora, who lost to Kaloi in last year's final, beat the Kamehameha junior everytime they played this season. Gora was brilliant in the beginning and rode her sharp angles and lively right arm to a 5-2 lead in the second set, then "got too hyper to finish the match."
Kaloi fought off two match points in the eighth game and tied the match. In a snapshot of each player's tenacity, Kaloi won the first three points of the tiebreaker, Gora the next three, Kaloi the next three, Gora the next three — fighting off three set points — and Kaloi the final two.
The comeback took its toll. Kaloi broke Gora in the first game of the final set before cramps hit.
Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8043.
• RESULTS IN FOR THE RECORD
