Campbell’s Kachi Respicio turned the tables on Pearl City’s Kasey Kikuyama on Friday in the most intense Hawaii high school wrestling weight class this season.
Respicio got past Kiku- yama 3-1 at 170 pounds to move into today’s semifinals of the OIA championships at the Leilehua High gym. It was the opposite of what happened at last week’s OIA West meet, when Kikuyama got the upper hand in the semifinals on the way to the title.
“Absolutely, he’s super tough,” Respicio said about his foe. “He’s one of the best in the state in my weight class. There’s more (challenges) coming.”
Respicio captured the Officials title in December at 182.
“They say I would never come back losing all this weight from 182 down to 170,” he added. “But I’ll watch them and all of them can watch me. That will be great. I promise I will overcome everybody. I cut 11 pounds in the last two weeks and couldn’t the get job done at the Westerns, but I’m back.”
Due to his loss last week to Kikuyama and a follow-up loss to Kapolei’s Gianni Oyadomari in the third-place match, Respicio tumbled from No. 6 to out of Hawaii Prep World’s pound-for-pound rankings that were released Friday. He’ll meet Oyadomari in the semifinals today. Keanu Punley, the champ at Officials at 170, is in the other semifinal against Kahuku’s Sitaleki Tongi. Punley barely edged Roosevelt’s Salvador Gonzalez 2-1 in a quarterfinal match.
When you include wrestlers from Maui, the Big Island and the ILH, Pearl City coach Todd Los Baños thinks the division could be about seven or eight wrestlers deep in talent.
“That’s with all pretty solid guys,” he said. “If you don’t wrestle well and you’re not wrestling smart, anybody can win. Usually, there are one or two studs per division. This is unreal.”
All of the OIA’s p4p wrestlers made it through to the semifinals — No. 2 Zayren Terukina of Campbell (145), No. 3 Makoa Cooper of Pearl City (160), No. 6 Brett Barefoot of Leilehua (182), No. 7 Christian Tavares of Radford (138), No. 8 Logan Garcia of Moanalua (126), and No. 9 Alize Wright of Campbell (195) on the boys side, and No. 1 Teniya Alo of Kahuku (138), No. 2 Kelani Corbett of Leilehua (155), No. 5 Macy Higa of Roosevelt (117), No. 6 Tiare Ikei of Kaiser (112) and No. 8 Jennie Fuamatu of Pearl City (168) among girls.
The fastest pins by those pound-for-pound wrestlers Friday were by Ikei (24 seconds), Cooper (39), Alo (45), Garcia (49 and 55), and Corbett (51) and Higa (51).
Leilehua, with 95 points, leads the boys standings, with Moanalua in second with 73 and Radford and Waianae tied for third with 67. Moanalua is the front-runner in the girls standings with 88 points, followed by Leilehua (67) and Waianae (64).
“Our boys are doing really well,” Mules coach Kevin Corbett said. “We’ve got 10 wrestlers in the semifinals and our goal is to get them all in the finals. It’s easier said than done. They’ve got a great frame of mind, so hopefully we can pull it off.”
Said Na Menehune girls coach Sean Sakaida: “As a team we did well, but the important matches are the semis and we’re looking to do well in that.”
