Kaua'i High's boys completed a sweep its girls started last week when they surged to the team title at Wailua Municipal, their home course. The Red Raiders went into the final round in third place, but shot 306 yesterday — the low tournament team round (best four-of-five scores) by 10 shots.

"I was surprised we played a little bad yesterday, but that's how golf is," Kaua'i coach Winston Ogata said. "I basically told them to play the golf course today the way they know they can and I guess that's what they did. I think they all wanted to do better than yesterday. I'm glad they pulled it out."

It was the Red Raiders' third state team title, but first since 1989. They also won in 1979, behind Jonathan Ota's state championship performance.

All three team championships have come at Wailua, where the home-course advantage is most pronounced on slippery greens that demand well-planned approach shots. Wailua course superintendent and administrator Ed Okamoto brought his crew out at 3:30 a.m. both days of the tournament to stretch the 6,650-yard layout into the Kona wind and keep the greens running fast through damp, humid conditions.

Junior Cory French (73—152) and sophomore Chad Nonaka (76—154) warmed to the challenge yesterday, finishing in the top 11 and anchoring a Kaua'i High team that boasts just two seniors — Kaua'i Interscholastic Federation champion Alan Baab and Abraham Akutagawa, who both shot in the 70s yesterday.

While the Red Raiders were running away with the team title Nino, a junior, was tenaciously closing in on Perez, who shared the first-round lead with Kamehameha's Chris Caycayon.

Nino woke with a sore neck that served him well. It forced him to focus on an easy tempo. He played the front nine in even-par 36 to cut his four-shot deficit in half, then birdied the 16th hole to play the back side in 1-under.

When Nino finished in the next-to-last group, he shared the day's best score (71) with Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion Travis Toyama — who pulled into third with 149 — but was still two behind Perez, who had the final hole to play. The par-4 18th reached out and took his title away, on his 18th birthday.

Perez pushed his drive into the right rough. He punched out, then hit a soft approach shot that was about a foot too soft. The ball buried itself in the uphill slope of the greenside bunker.

His next two shots were about an inch from perfection. In golf, that's not good enough.

He blasted a brilliant bunker shot right past the pin. "Best bunker shot of my life," Perez said, shaking his head.

It stopped six feet above the hole and his delicate bogey putt rolled over the edge. "I thought it was in, just too much break," Perez said.

He made the 3-footer coming back to finish with a 75 and salvage the playoff.

Perez, who will play with Toyama on the University of Hawai'i team in the fall, had another slick downhill putt on the first playoff hole (No. 1) to win. That 7-footer for birdie also barely missed.

Nino gamely got up and down from behind the green, draining an uphill 10-footer to stay in it. "If I'd putted like that all day," he said, "I would have shot a lot lower."

The two returned to the second hole. Both pushed their drives and hit irons short of the green. Nino finessed his wedge shot to three feet above the hole, watched Perez miss his 12-footer for par, then dropped another par putt into the heart of the hole to win.

"Downhill, straight in," Nino said. "I didn't even think about it, just stroked it in."

Perez took his runner-up finish philosophically. "I just wanted to have fun this week, in my last high schools rounds," he said. "I played the front nine pretty tentative. On the back I just let go and had fun."

King Kekaulike took second, nine shots behind Kaua'i. The team has won the Maui Interscholastic League title both years of its existence. It also took its second-place finish gracefully.

"I thought our chances to win were really good," said King Kekaulike coach Bob Bangerter. "But I knew how good the boys from Kaua'i are. The scores they shot yesterday were not indicative of their potential. I knew they were going to come on strong at their home course."

Bangerter's son Bryan, the MIL champion, tied for 11th.

SHORT PUTTS: Waiakea is the only other school to sweep boys and girls golf titles, accomplishing the feat in 2000. The girls started having their own championship a year earlier. ... Sean Maekawa, the Big Island Interscholastic Federation champ from Honoka'a, tied for fifth at 77-152. Mililani's Bronson Kalilikane was fourth, at 76-151.