University of Hawaii Hilo women’s coach Jim DeMello is reaching out to try to recruit golfers for his team. This year’s golfers gave him a great recruiting tool last week when they won their first Pacific West Conference championship at Hawaii Prince.
The inaugural victory gave the Vulcans a rare PacWest sweep, with the men winning their third conference title in six years, in Vallejo, Calif. Both teams head to the NCAA Division II regionals in Texas.
The men play Monday to Wednesday in Austin and are seeded eighth in the West, which is paired with the South Central in a Super Regional. At least three teams advance to the national championship later in the month in Michigan.
The women play their Super Regional in Mansfield. The top three teams advance to the championship in North Carolina. Hilo is seeded seventh, behind third-seeded California Baptist — the team it beat by three shots to win the PacWest.
"Back in April, we were eighth out of 10 teams at a tournament in Sonoma," DeMello recalled. "Sonoma’s B team beat us. We had a bad road trip. Then we came back and have played the way we are capable of playing since, the way we’d played early in the season."
It helped to be "home." Both of Hilo’s teams play all Hawaii golfers, and three of DeMello’s come from Oahu and had lots of experience at Prince.
Kristen Sawada, whose brother Jared is the reigning Manoa Cup champion, is a 2011 Mililani graduate. She was PacWest medalist by a shot over sophomore teammate Jade Salvador (Hawaii Baptist) and both earned first-team all-conference honors. Sawada also won the Saint Martin’s Invitational to start her season and tied for sixth in the PacWest last year.
DeMello also has Kacie Harada, out of Maryknoll, who earned second-team honors along with Baldwin graduate Dayna Bersamin. Harada and Waiakea’s Nyssa Aoki had some experience at Prince as juniors.
DeMello knows all five women are capable of shooting in the 70s, and if that happens in Texas, the Vulcans could make their first national championship appearance. They have already come farther than any team in the short history of the program.
Bersamin, Harada and Aoki are seniors, so the coach is actively seeking recruits, particularly from Hawaii.
"We are very open to having girls come no matter what their skill level," says DeMello, named PacWest tri-coach of the year. "We just want to get them, get them a scholarship and we can help them improve. If girls want to play college golf and have that experience, you can come to Hilo and have it."
Men’s coach Earl Tamiya has his first all-Hawaii team in more than a decade. The Vulcans won their latest PacWest title by 20 shots, with junior Dalen Yamauchi of Waiakea taking third in Vallejo. A year ago, he was co-medalist at the PacWest championships and advanced to the NCAA championships as an individual.
This year, teammates Kyeton Little and Chris Shimomura also earned all-conference honors with top-six finishes and Corey Kozuma took ninth, followed by Christian Agosto. Shimomura, Kozuma and Agosto are all seniors.
Tamiya is not sure what it will take to get out of a loaded Super Regional, but he is sure it will involve a bunch of birdies at a relatively short course. He was worried about his players’ consistency and focus earlier in the season, so he has them all training in martial arts now.
It seems to have helped.
"At one time, the kids would be playing from good to bad and couldn’t stop the bleeding when they got into a worse situation," Tamiya says. "We’ve really been working hard with the kids the last 11/2 months to try and get them to be more disciplined."
