The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Things were going swimmingly at the Hawaii Wrestling Officials Association Scholarship Tournament on Saturday at Leilehua, with each of the top seeds from 106 to 170 pounds finding their spots in the final.
Then the underdogs took over.
Pablo Gonzalez of Radford started the parade at 182 with a win over Shaundale Magnani of Kapolei, and then the hits just kept on coming. Charlie Kahepuu of Waianae beat Logan Sanborn of Saint Louis to take out the top seed at 195, and Boman Tokioka of Kamehameha followed with the biggest surprise of the tournament — a win over Mililani’s Dayton Furuta. Furuta came back to take third place, while Tokioka failed to place after forfeiting to eventual champion Johnny Morrison of Campbell.
Then Keenan Greenbaum narrowly beat Campbell’s Toese Tia 3-2 in the semifinals at 285 pounds to complete the carnage.
Tia might be getting used to close losses; he fell to Leilehua’s Jariyn Villegas 3-2 in last year’s state final, while Greenbaum missed the second day of the tournament to an ankle injury. Officials was his first major tournament since then, after he missed last week’s Maui tournament to take the ACT. Greenbaum won the title with another close one, 6-4 over Lahainaluna’s Connor Mowat.
In both matches, Greenbaum grabbed a lead and refused to let it go, something he developed in an elite wrestling camp over the summer, when he was still trying to get over his bad luck at states. But a tournament championship in December is not going to do much for Greenbaum — or any of the 27 other champions — when states roll around.
"It matters to a certain point, but everyone is going to get better," Greenbaum said. "So in that sense, it doesn’t really matter much."
Russell Laros joined Greenbaum as champions from Hawaii Prep. Ka Makani had only two wrestlers compete.
Pearl City’s boys took the team title with 109.5 points, with the help of three champions — Alex Ursua at 126, Blake Cooper at 160 and Maui Lii Lee at 182.
All three of them were dominant, and Cooper scored 22 points for the Chargers, more than any other wrestler contributed to his team. Lahainaluna returns to Maui with a second-place finish, 14 points behind the Chargers. Campbell took third with 85 points.
The girls side had its share of surprises, with five top seeds falling before the final. But the biggest surprise was the possibility that Aiea might be back.
Na Alii won states with a skeleton crew two years ago, and they appear ready to make another run at it with three champions — of their four wrestlers who placed — on Saturday.
Aiea finished third, a point behind second-pace Campbell (67 points, no champions) and 26 behind Kamehameha (93 points, two champions).
Pac-Five’s Joshua Terao certainly didn’t lose anything over the summer.
The senior is going for his fourth straight state championship and an undefeated career and got his final high school campaign off to a good start.
Terao beat Justin Inovejas of Lahainaluna 10-0 before pinning Sheldon Bailey of Waianae in 1:29 and Bishop Moore of Roosevelt in 2:29. He won his latest championship when he pinned Mililani’s Zackary Diamond in 2:57.
Give Diamond credit, though, for stepping up into that bracket. It seemed as though Terao scared everyone away except for Diamond, and the Trojan won three of his matches to get to the final by pin (two of them in the first period) and the other by a 16-9 score.
Alika Durham of Kaiser had the fastest pin of the night, a 20-second job over Casey Freitas in the 132-pound consolations. Jachobe Hunter of Radford had the most pins with six, also in the 132-pound class. Hunter took third.
The outstanding female wrestler of the tournament had to be Kamehameha’s Teshya Alo, who won her two matches in a combined 22 seconds to take the 130-pound title.
