Punahou School alum Stephanie Kono has been named to the National Golf Coaches Association All-America first team for the second straight year. The UCLA sophomore was also recently named to the U.S. Curtis Cup team.

Kono has a scoring average of 72.0 in her first two collegiate seasons. She has won three tournaments and led the Bruins, who were ranked No. 1 part of this season, in scoring each year.

Locally, Kono won the 2001 Hawai'i State Women's Match Play Championship at age 11, then making her the youngest winner in history. In 2008, she became the first woman ever to make the cut at the Mid-Pacific Open.

Kono set three records while winning the 2006 girls state high school championship, shooting an 8-under-par 64 from the middle tees that was the lowest tournament round in HHSAA history and the women's course record at Turtle Bay. She finished at 8-under 136, also an HHSAA tournament low.

Internationally, Kono was a member of the U.S. team at the 2007 Ping Junior Solheim Cup and won the 2005 Harder German Junior Masters, after capturing the Westfield Junior PGA Championship.

TENNIS

UH SIGNS SPIKER

University of Hawai'i men's tennis coach John Nelson officially announced yesterday that two-time Hawai'i state high school champion Jared Spiker signed a letter of intent, along with Jonathan Brooklyn, from Hillingdon, England.

Spiker, a Kalani graduate who picked up the game at Diamond Head Tennis Center, won the last two state singles titles. He was unbeaten in his two-year high school career. Last year, he became the first boy from an O'ahu Interscholastic Association school to win a state singles title in 26 years.

Spiker is also a brown belt in judo and won three national titles before focusing on tennis. His two older brothers combined to win five state high school wrestling championships.

Brooklyn is the 57th-ranked player in England and has also earned rankings from the ATP (1,475) and ITF (1,468). He advanced to the round of 16 in the Great Britain Men's Futures 14, earning ATP points. He was a quarterfinalist at the ITF's 2009 Aegon Scottish Jr. International.

Brooklyn's brother, Matt, just completed a stellar career at UCLA, helping the Bruins to a pair of deep NCAA Tournament runs as one of the top players in the Pac-10 Conference.

UH just won its third straight Western Athletic Conference title and advanced to its third straight NCAA Tournament. Brooklyn and Spiker will help fill the void left by departing senior Andreas Weber.