PUHI — Waimea High School swept its opening round of the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation air riflery matches, Wednesday at the Island School campus. Paced by the shooting of Amlan Fujimura, the Menehune men edged out the Island School team 1,090-1,036,
PUHI — Waimea High School swept its opening round of the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation air riflery matches, Wednesday at the Island School campus.
Paced by the shooting of Amlan Fujimura, the Menehune men edged out the Island School team 1,090-1,036, the Voyagers placing four of their top five men above the 200-mark.
Similarly, the Menehune wahine placed four of their top five women above the 200-mark to take a 1,053-924 win over the Island School wahine who finished with two of its top five in the 200-plus range.
Lindsey Duarte of Island School finished with the highest score in the girls with 219 (88-64-67), followed by Stephanie Steuri, gingerly tending a leg injury, with a 203 (87-69-47).
From there, Piilani Kali (85-37-60-182) and Griffin Lord (71-69-42-182) ended tying and Kelsey Long (71-69-42-138) rounded out the Island School leaders.
Waimea clustered its victory around its top four shooters, who finished within three points of each other, the highest scoring Menehune lady, Sherry Ann Singson, netting a 215 (76-75-64). She was followed by Jackie Taylor (84-75-55-214), Amber Duldulao (80-76-58-214) and Kendra Ishida (83-68-61-212). Nikki Acoba, getting the highest prone score for the ladies at 89, rounded out the Menehune leaders at 198 after dropping to a 65 in kneeling and a 46 in the standing positions.
Fujimura netted the highest score for the boys with his 231, leading the Menehune men. He was closely followed by Bryle Rivera (94-77-57-228) and John Medeiros (79-78-69-226). Austin Kunishige (86-78-54-218) and Kris Toma (71-66-50-187) rounded out the Waimea men leaders.
Logan Domingo (87-76-67-230) topped the Island School boys followed by J. Riley Louis (82-74-69-225), Marcus Punua (87-65-50-202), Steven Baptist (81-70-49-200) and Travis Kim (71-64-38-173).
Scores from the matches between Kaua‘i High School and Kapa‘a High School were not available at press time.
Victor Aguilar, coach for the Waimea teams, was concerned that several of his key shooters were not able to make the opening day, forcing several first-time shooters to take the mat and help the team.
Waimea will host Kapa‘a next Wednesday at the Hanapepe Armory starting at 3 p.m. while Island School travels to the Kaua‘i High School range.
New Island School layout makes short work of KIF matches
PUHI — Sean Magoun, coach of the Island School air riflery team, said when he told the other coaches about the school’s new layout, everyone’s eyes got bigger.
That new layout moves the riflery squads from behind the big soccer field to an area used for a turnaround during the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation cross country meets.
But the facet that attracted attention is the new layout allowing for 32 bays enabling all of the shooters to shoot at once.
Previously, KIF air riflery matches were done in two relays with 16 shooters in each relay, resulting in longer match times.
“All of the coaches’ eyes got bigger when I told them about it,” Magoun said. “There’s nothing like getting out of here by 4:30, or 5 p.m. with everyone shooting at once. But this is still a work in progress.”
Waimea coach Victor Aguilar said the biggest problem he faced was not having enough cases to transport the weapons to the firing line.
“We’ve got the weapons, and this year, because we are able to do everything in a single relay, I’m assigning each student a weapon because they won’t be switching weapons between the relays,” Aguilar said. “The only problem is we don’t have enough cases so we’re doubling up weapons in the cases.”
Next Wednesday, Aguilar said Waimea will return to the Hanapepe Armory when it hosts Kapa‘a High School.
During the 2009-2010 KIF air riflery season, Waimea lost use of the armory due to renovation work being done there.
Throughout the season, the Menehune juggled its season, using the Island School facility for the majority of its “home” shoots.
The KIF master schedule, which was released in late July, has Waimea with a question mark during its home shoots, but Aguilar said the armory is ready and so are the Menehune.
