By KEVIN JAKAHI
Hawaii Tribune-Herald
It came down to the last hole in the quarterfinals for Dalen Yamauchi, who needed a birdie on Friday to continue his quest at the 108th Manoa Cup.
Instead, Justin Taparra birdied the par-4 18th hole while Yamauchi parred and saw his run at the amateur match-play championship end at Oahu Country Club.
Despite his 1-up victory, Taparra, a Chaminade senior-to-be golfer, had little time to celebrate and took a lopsided 5-and-3 loss to Brent Grant in the semifinals.
Grant, an Oregon State golfer and Moanalua graduate, will battle Maui’s Justin Ngan, a Baldwin senior-to-be, for the championship.
Yamauchi, a former UH-Hilo golfer and Waiakea graduate, was shooting to become the first Big Island product to win the Manoa Cup since 2014.
That year, Nainoa Calip, a former UH-Manoa golfer and Kamehameha graduate, won the title.
The last Vul golfer to capture the Manoa Cup was Shane Hoshino, a Mililani grad, in 1999.
Yamauchi, last year’s Manoa Cup runner-up, was in good shape through 11 holes. He was 3-up.
Taparra doesn’t have a history of winning. The Kamehameha-Kapalama graduate won his first collegiate tournament in the season-opener last September.
Over holes 12, 13 and 14, the Chaminade Silversword shot 4, 4 and 4. Yamauchi had 5s across the board.
It doesn’t really matter that the holes were par 4, 5 and 4, respectively. That’s the beauty of match play. It matters little if an opponent wins by one, two or a dozen strokes on a hole.
Taparra won those holes, and it was suddenly all squared heading to No. 15. From there, it was a stalemate, until No. 18.
Par is never a bad score, but Taparra birdied to beat Yamauchi’s par and win the hole and the match, 1-up.
Oregon State incoming recruit Shawn Lu thumped former Vul Isaac Jaffurs 4-and-3.
It wasn’t really that close.
After the sixth hole, Lu, a recent Moanalua graduate, beat Jaffurs on four of the next eight holes.
By then, Lu, also the HHSAA state champion, was 4-up. Both birdied the par-5 16th. Jaffurs needed a win to extend the match but was gone with three holes left.
Pono an Optimist
Hilo’s Pono Yanagi earned a spot in the boys 14-15 age division at the Optimist International Junior Championships, which will be held July 25-30 at Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
The Kamehameha sophomore-to-be shared co-medalist honors with Honolulu’a AJ Teraoka with a 1-over-par 73 at the Optimist local qualifier Friday at Turtle Bay on Oahu.
He was the only Big Island golfer to qualify.
Other Big Island golfers were:
• Hilo’s Kailey Oki, tied for fifth, 13-over 85, girls 10-12
• Hilo’s Lacey Uchida, T6, 82, girls 13-14
• Hilo’s Shon Katahira, T20, 79, boys 16-18
