honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser


Advertiser Staff

Posted on: Thursday, September 24, 2009

UH teams prepare for season openers

 • Kauai's Wise starting to find comfort zone
Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser

Corie Hou, above, was second-team All-WAC last year. TJ Kua, below, won the Manoa Cup and Barbers Point titles this year.

Photos courtesy University of Hawai'i

spacer spacer
Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser
spacer spacer
Hawaii news photo - The Honolulu Advertiser
spacer spacer

Rainbow Wahine golf has undergone a major makeover while the Hawai'i men's team will look extremely familiar as both teams head into their season-opening tournament next week in Oregon.

UH will play in the third annual Giustina Memorial Classic, Monday and Tuesday at Trysting Tree Golf Club. The tournament has a unique format, with men's and women's teams playing in the same foursomes. Host Oregon State won both the men's and women's titles last year. Maui High graduate Elyse Okada is a sophomore for the OSU women.

The Rainbow Wahine, coached by Lori Castillo, come into the season with five new players joining seniors Corie Hou and Erin Matsuoka. Hou, an Australian who led the team in eight of its 10 events last year, tied for fourth at her first two WAC Championships and was a second-team all-conference WAC selection last year. Matsuoka, a Punahou graduate, reached the semifinals of the Hawai'i State Women's Match Play Championship this summer.

Kamehameha graduate Ka'ili Britos is one of three freshmen recruits. The all-ILH golfer finished fourth at the 2008 State Women's Stroke Play Championship.

Brigitte Baker, another freshman, graduated from Langley High School in McLean, Va. She was named Fairfax County Female Athlete of the Year last spring after winning the Liberty District championship, where she was competing against boys. She also won the Virginia State High School Girls Championship and has captured two national junior events.

Freshman Laura Polak comes to Manoa from Victoria, British Columbia. In Canada, she won 12 B.C. Golf Association tournaments the last two years and was 2007 BCGA (Zone 5) Junior Golfer of the Year.

The only sophomore on the team is Erika Lundberg, from Vallentuna, Sweden. She is a transfer from the University of Mobile, an NAIA school in Alabama that she helped to a fourth-place national finish. Lundberg was also fourth individually, and captured medalist honors at the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference tournament.

Brittany Bomar, a junior from Anchorage, Alaska, played two seasons at Northern Iowa and took last season off. She won the 2006 Alaska State Match Play Championship, defeating Margaux Sheehan — the top-ranked golfer in the Big Sky Conference in 2007. She also won Alaska's state amateur championship in 2006, was state junior champion from 2002 to 2004 and the state's junior masters champion in 2001 and '03. Her father, Billy Bomar, is director for the First Tee Program in Alaska.

In contrast, seven of the eight Rainbow men's golfers on coach Ronn Miyashiro's roster are from Hawai'i. The roster has no seniors. Four UH golfers are freshmen this season — Kealakehe's Henry Park, Maryknoll's Alexander Chu, Waiakea's Daniel Koge and Kaua'i High's Cory Oride.

Park is a two-time BIIF first-team selection and had two top-five finishes in the State High School Championship. Last year he won the Makalei Amateur.

Chu was a three-time all-ILH pick who finished fifth in the state as a junior. He has won the Francis Hyde I'i Brown Four-Ball Match Play Championship twice and finished second in the 2007 Mamala Bay Hickam AFB Invitational.

Koge won four straight BIIF championships with his high school team. Individually, he finished second in the BIIF in 2008 and fifth last spring. He went on to take ninth at states.

Oride was the KIF champion the last two years and also won four team championships. He tied for third in the state last spring.

The only junior for the Warriors is California's Kamden Brakel. Sophomores are Lihu'e's TJ Kua, who won the Manoa Cup and Barbers Point titles this summer, Hilo's Pono Calip, and Mililani's Jared Sawada.

• • •