Fujishige, a Castle senior in his first year of varsity competition, swept defending champ Matt Tavares of McKinley, 6-4, 6-0, in today's final at Brigham Young University-Hawai'i.

Fujishige attended Kamehameha as a freshman and Word of Life as a junior, but did not play tennis for either school. He transferred to Castle for his junior year, but left after the first semester and was home-schooled for the final two quarters.

"I never played (interscholastic) tennis my whole time in high school," Fujishige said. "So this feels really good."

Ironically, Tavares knows almost the same feeling because he also won the OIA title in his first year of varsity competition. He did not play as a McKinley freshman in 2005 because he didn't want to sit out his sophomore season if a transfer attempt to Kamehameha went through (transfers to the Interscholastic League of Honolulu are ineligible if they played the previous year).

Tavares ended up staying at McKinley and promptly won the OIA crown, and he defeated Fujishige 6-3, 6-4, last week in the league's Eastern Division final.

But yesterday, Fujishige turned the tables by using a relentless service game to take early command and never let go.

"I needed my revenge," Fujishige said playfully, jabbing at his longtime friend Tavares. "I just played my own game."

Fujishige said he and Tavares have known each other "since 10, 11 years old" and often practiced together at Ke'ehi Lagoon courts.

They played each other in youth tournaments, but faced off for the first time in high school competition during a regular-season match just over three weeks ago. Fujishige won, 6-3, 6-2.

Tavares avenged the defeat last week, but was unable to take the rubber match yesterday.