Today’s doubles final will determine if ‘Iolani can win its first girls tennis title in a decade or if Punahou will continue its dominance.

The Raiders’ Kristen Poei and Sari Kwee closed Friday’s action at the Carlsmith Ball/HHSAA State Tennis Championships with a 6-3, 7-5 semifinal victory over the second-seeded team of Sarah Steele and Dani Young from Punahou. That followed an astonishing comeback by Punahou’s Katie Kim and Ashley Ishimura — reversing a rally just as astonishing from ‘Iolani’s Brooke Alcuran and Kara Okazaki — to set the stage for more drama today.

Top-seeded Kim and Ishimura won 6-1, 1-6 (8) in the 10-point tiebreaker used instead of a third set. They scored the final five points of the tiebreaker, Kim poaching two winners to get to match point and Ishimura chasing down a ball in the corner and hitting a winner to close it out.

They will play third-seeded Poei and Kwee at 8:30 a.m. at the Patsy T. Mink CORP Tennis Complex. Winner gets the girls championship.

Punahou has won the past nine.

Raiders girls coach Allison Ishii played on the last ‘Iolani team to win, in 2002. It came close last year and is now even closer after losing this year’s ILH title to Punahou in a playoff.

"Traditionally they’ve always been way deeper than we are," Ishii said. "Beating them in the regular season was huge even if we didn’t win the playoff, just so they knew it was possible to beat Punahou."

She told Kwee and Poei to "go big" Friday because "we don’t have anything to lose." Today’s message will be different.

"They’ve got to play with the belief they can win," Ishii said. "That makes a huge difference."

Top-seeded Sarah Dvorak of Waiakea will play defending champion Alyssa Tobita of Mililani in a sequel to last year’s girls final. Dvorak defeated Waimea’s Lani-Rae Green, who had upset fourth-seeded Bobbi Oshiro of ‘Iolani. Tobita won 11 of the past 12 games to stop Le Jardin’s Cori Cummings, who upset third-seeded Skyla Alcon of Mid-Pacific in the morning.

All four girls singles semifinalists are sophomores.

Punahou’s boys clinched their 22nd consecutive championship after Friday’s quarterfinals, extending their national record.

They still have top-seeded Brandon Lee (singles) and Zander Kim and Kawika Lam (doubles) in today’s finals, and lots of teammates to cheer them on. That struck coach Rusty Komori at the ILH championships, as he watched his players pulling for each other in the middle of their own matches.

"Usually I want the players to just focus on their match," Komori said, "but I really liked … Brandon was losing and he’s cheering for Paul (Okuda) and Paul’s cheering on Brandon. I thought it was just a real special situation, showing how close players and a team could be, because tennis is such an individual sport."

Lee takes on Kamehameha’s Marcel Chan in singles. ‘Iolani’s Darin Poei and Lawrence Ho play Kim and Lam, who escaped a tiebreak first set in the semis against Kealakehe’s Chandler Daub and Jeffrey Gelman.