Heading into today’s third and final round of the John Burns Intercollegiate golf tournament at Wailua Golf Course, Justin “Pono” Tokioka has the third-best total score of the University of Hawaii’s 10 competitors and easily heads the Hawaii “B” squad
Heading into today’s third and final round of the John Burns Intercollegiate golf tournament at Wailua Golf Course, Justin “Pono” Tokioka has the third-best total score of the University of Hawaii’s 10 competitors and easily heads the Hawaii “B” squad with a 5-over par 149 total. Tokioka shot a 1-over 73 on Thursday, best of all Rainbow Warrior second-round scores.
The 73 is his low round of this, his junior season at UH. It shouldn’t be all that much of a surprise since Pono was one of the KIF’s best players during his tenure as captain of Kauai High School’s golf team. Returning to the Garden Isle is obviously bringing back some of that comfort and Pono currently sits in a tie for 43rd place among the tightly bunched 97-player field.
Kauai brought some good fortune for Pono last season, as well. He opened up the Princeville Makai Invitational with a 3-under par 69.
During an interview with the Kauai High golf squad toward the end of Pono’s senior season, I observed that the team behaved like a group of close siblings. They were playing off one another and cracking inside jokes, but they all somewhat deferred to Pono. Since he is hearing impaired, they assisted both he and I in asking and answering my questions. While he was having some funny exchanges with a number of teammates, I could tell that they truly respected him as a captain and a person.
His Hawaii “B” group is toward the bottom of the standings heading into today, but Pono is again leading that team well by example. He jumped 11 spots in the individual standings after Thursday and could move into the tournament’s top third with a similar result today. He’s targeted these Wailua greens many times before, so it’s certainly plausible.
Kapaa jumps to Oahu, UH jets to Mainland
Both the Kapaa Warriors and Hawaii Rainbow Warriors basketball teams tipped off Thursday at 5 p.m. and each was a favorite in their respective matchups.
For Kapaa, its game against University High School was its first at the HHSAA state tournament since 2013. In fact, no KIF team has advanced beyond the quarterfinals since 2010 when these very teams met in the opening round. In that encounter, the Warriors pulled off a 35-32 upset win over No. 4 University before losing to eventual champion Pahoa in the semifinals.
As for the Rainbow Warriors, UH hit the road for a matchup at CSUN. Every game from here on out is crucial for the ‘Bows if they hope to maintain their hold on the Big West’s top spot. While Hawaii (20-3, 9-1 Big West) has more than doubled CSUN’s (9-16, 4-7) win output to this point, these are the type of trap games Hawaii has stumbled with in the past. This season has been a different story as the ‘Bows have managed to take care of business against teams they should beat.
However they perform will carry them into Saturday’s clash with second-place UC Irvine, which will be looking for revenge after last week’s blowout defeat in Manoa.
It’s crunch time for one of the nation’s most unlikely stories and we’ll see if they can maintain the path they’ve created for themselves to this point.
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David Simon can be reached at dsimon@thegardenisland.com.
