It was just like a Waiakea tennis practice, only hotter and with the stakes ratcheted up as well.
The Warriors’ Alicia Chun and Chloe Teramoto met teammates Maya Atwal and Jade Brilhante in the second round Thursday at the HHSAA tennis championships, and the regular season pecking order was restored at Mauni Lani Sports & Fitness Club.
Chun and Teramoto closed out the first set by winning four straight games en route to 6-4, 6-3 victory to reach the quarterfinals, and – no pressure – the onus could be on them if the Warriors are to have a chance to unseat Punahou, the 16-time girls champion.
“A lot of extended rallies and back-and-forth play,” coach Bill Brilhante said. “We anticipated that type of match. For my liking, it just happened way too early in the tournament.”
The only seeds to fall on Day 1 of the tournament were Waiakea’s No. 6 boys and girls teams, but Bill Brilhante is not sure he would classify either as an upset.
He juggled his top two girls teams during the season – Chun/Teramoto at 1A; underclassmen Atwal/Jade Brilhante at 1B – between Nos. 1 and Nos. 2 doubles so they could get the top two seeds at the BIIF tournament.
Chun and Teramoto, however, were upset in the semifinals. That loss cost them a seeding at the state tournament, and ultimately the Warriors lost a chance to put their top two doubles teams into the quarterfinals.
Waiakea’s Keilyn Kunitomo, the third seed, reeled of a pair of 6-0, 6-0 wins, and fourth seed Maile Brilhante cruised to the quarterfinals as well. On the strength of three doubles teams advancing, Punahou held a 9-8 lead against Waiakea in the team standings.
On Friday in a key match, Chun and Teramoto, a sophomore and junior, respectively, take on the Buffanblu’s second-seeded pairing, Alexis Matsunaga and Megan Flores.
“I was talking to my assistants,” Bill Brilhante said. “That will be the match. If we can win that one, we’ll be in the thick of things for the team title.”
Kunitomo’s quarterfinal will be a rubber match against the sixth seed, Kealakehe’s Michelle Uyeda, who lost just four games in advancing. Uyeda beat Kunitomo during the regular season, but the Warriors junior won their BIIF semifinal match on the road to winning her first league crown.
On the boys side, Bill Brilhante said he saw nothing from the singles draw that would indicate that Hawaii Prep’s top-seeded Ryo Minakata is anything but the prohibitive favorite. Minakata, who didn’t lose a game Thursday, meets Roosevelt’s’s Carlo Argones in the quarterfinals, and in the afternoon he could be in line to face Hilo’s Luke Hamano in the semifinals. That would be a rematch of a BIIF final that Minakata won 6-3, 6-0.
On Thursday morning, Waiakea’s Lucas Chun and Bruin Yomono, the BIIF champions, lost their opener, 6-4, 6-1 to Kaiser’s Felix Krendl and Kristopher Cancelado, who subsequently won in straight sets in the second round as well.
“The OIA coaches, they know that team is pretty good,” Brilhante said. “One of the players recently moved from California and not a whole lot of people know about him.”
