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Mighty Menehunes

Moanalua's top wrestling duo
will try to make it three in a row

By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Two-time defending state girls' wrestling champions Stephany
Lee, left, and Caylene Valdez are used to dominating their
competition. Moanalua is trying for a three-peat in this
weekend's state girls' wrestling championship.

By Brandon Lee
Special to the Star-Bulletin

Stephany Lee and Caylene Valdez have rarely tasted defeat in their wrestling careers.

Moanalua's two top-seeded wrestlers are looking to ensure that the trend continues, as they lead the two-time defending state champion Menehunes into the third annual Data House Girls State Wrestling Championships Friday and Saturday at the Blaisdell Arena.

Both Lee, a junior, and Valdez, a sophomore, are defending state champions who are nationally ranked and come from judo backgrounds. Lee competes in the 140-pound division and Valdez at 108.

Valdez has never lost in the islands and is ranked in the top 10 in the nation, according to coach Joel Kawachi. The only defeats of her career came when she placed fourth and fifth at the U.S. Girls Nationals the past two years.

Lee, wrestling for only her second season, has never competed at nationals, though she is currently ranked No. 2.

Her only defeat came earlier this year when she forfeited a preseason match in Maui for executing a hard takedown that was ruled an illegal slam. But Kawachi struggles with considering that a real loss.

"As far as talent, I don't think anybody comes close to them (in history of Moanalua program)," Kawachi said. "But now, because there are so many people out there that want to beat them, they have to work harder and really push themselves. They go all out, all the time."

Lee, Valdez and the rest of the Menehunes will all have to go all out if they are to beat the rest of the field at the state tournament, particularly Oahu Interscholastic Association Eastern Division rival Castle.

By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin Moanalua's Jessica Toyama finished third in the OIA girls' wrestling tournament this year. She is also the student body president and has a 4.0 GPA, according to coach Joel Kawachi.

The Knights handed Moanalua its first regular-season loss ever earlier this year, and tied the Menehunes last weekend at the OIA championships.
Some, including Kawachi, consider Castle a slight favorite. But don't tell that to either Lee or Valdez.

"It's good to have pressure because it makes you better," Lee said.

Said Valdez: "I think we'll do really good in states. I'm ready for it, no worries."

Both Lee and Valdez conceded, however, that the Knights probably have more overall experience as a team.

Still, the matchup continues to look pretty even on paper going into states, with Castle and Moanalua both having qualified nine wrestlers, and the Knights also having a top-seed and defending state title-holder in 121-pound senior Cathy Migita.

"We're going to need big performances from everyone," Castle coach Ben Guerrero said. "It's going to be tight, just like the OIAs."

Of Lee and Valdez in particular, he said: "They are good offensive and defensive wrestlers who can take it to you from anywhere on the mat."

Moanalua has two other wrestlers who were state bronze medalists in their respective weight divisions last year, and two more who finished in the top five.

"Everybody takes care of their part," Lee said. "They do theirs and we do ours, so that way, the team comes as one."

And as for any added pressure that can come with the chance to three-peat and potentially build the foundation for a dynasty, both shrugged it off.

"You take one day at a time," Valdez said. "If we take (states) three times, then that's really good, I'd be so proud. If we don't, all we can say is we tried our best and we can still say we were the first school to take it."

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Kid sister grows up to be a wrestling champ

By Dennis Anderson
Honolulu Advertiser 2/27/2001

When 98-pound Tanya Miyasaki graduated from King Intermediate into the big, scary world of high school three years ago, she stuck close to her big brother, Castle senior Jason Miyasaki.

Tanya Miyasaki, right, will have the support of Castle High teammate and friend Kesa Tong-Ishikawa when she seeks the 98-pound title in the third annual Data House State Girls Wrestling Championships.

"Everything he did, I did it, too," she says. When Jason went out for wrestling for the first time, Tanya volunteered to be a team statistician. "He said it was a lot of fun. I wanted to be a part of it," Tanya says.

She’s not keeping statistics any more. This weekend, Miyasaki will be the top-seeded 98-pounder in the third annual Data House State Girls Wrestling Championships. "(Wrestling) looked like fun, so I decided to come out for it" last year, she says.

Saturday night she won the O‘ahu Interscholastic Association championship at her weight, and — much more important to Tanya — helped her team win its first title.

"It’s always for the team; I don’t want to let them down," she says.

Miyasaki has lost only one match this season, at the OIA dual-meet championships, where Castle finished second to Moanalua.

"For myself I could understand losing; it can motivate me, but at the team championships I lost for the team and I felt like I let them down," she says.

Losing is not an option

Says Castle head coach Ben Guerrero: "Tanya has great drive and work ethic and doesn’t like to lose. I mean, most of us don’t like to lose, but this girl really doesn’t like to lose!"

It is that kind of drive, that work ethic, that determination, and a whole lot of talent that could enable Castle’s girls to dethrone two-time state champion Moanalua Friday and Saturday at Blaisdell Arena.

In addition to Miyasaki, the Knights have the defending state 121-pound champion Cathy Migita, who is unbeaten this season, and last year’s state 98-pound bronze-medal winner Kristin Fujioka. Migita and Fujioka are both nationally ranked by the U.S. Girls Wrestling Association.

Migita exemplifies the talent and drive of the Knights. "Oh my gosh," exclaims coach Guerrero, "she’s incredible. . . She can pretty much take down anyone around her weight. Her shot is really hard to stop."

On Saturday night, Migita won the OIA title although she was wrestling with a 102-degree fever. Castle needed every point to tie Moanalua for the championship.

Senior Krystal Hirose (108 pounds), freshman Janine Lunsford (175) and junior Ami Breckterfield (220) are others whose points will be vital to Castle’s success this weekend.

"They’re all hard workers," Guerrero says. "I push them really hard. They complain a little but always come back for more."

And they are willing to sacrifice. For example, Miyasaki dropped from the 103- to 98-pound division because teammate Fujioka "couldn’t suck weight any more," Miyasaki says, and had to go up from 98 to 103.

Drink before you drop

Sucking weight, Miyasaki explains candidly, is "doing a whole lot more exercise than you normally do. When you’re dead tired, and want to drink water, you keep exercising until you feel like you’re going to pass out. Then you drink water. I get kind of grouchy but it really hasn’t been hard to stay down once I made the weight the first time."

Sacrifice also comes in the classroom. "I was slacking in world history, but I’m doing better in school since (assistant) coach Phil Acosta had a nice long talk with me. He is always on us about our grades," says Miyasaki, who also took up judo two years ago and is a reigning OIA champion.

Nine of the 12 girls on Castle’s team have qualified for states, one in each weight division except 155 pounds. Moanalua also has nine qualifiers — and also has two No. 1 seeds — and the Menehune are not going to abdicate their state throne quietly.

The Menehune were squashed by the Knights on the first day of the regular season but came back to beat them for the dual-meet tournament championship. In the league tournament Saturday night, Castle tied the score when Breckterfield, wrestling for the first year, took second in the final weight class and Moanalua didn’t have an entrant.

The Knights were told at the time they had won by a point, but a recalculation Sunday and yesterday determined a scoring error. It was a tie.

Moanalua sophomore Caylene Valdez (108 pounds) and junior Stephany Lee (140) are both defending state champions and are both ranked by the USGWA.

Too good to be true

Lee is ranked second, even though she didn’t go to nationals last year, because she twice pinned last year’s national runner-up, Stephanie Bolton of Radford. She is a multiple-time national judo champion who is "very powerful," coach Joel Kawachi says. "She has great hips from her judo experience, which helps with her balance and quickness."

Lee’s only defeat this year came because she was too powerful. Kawachi explains that in a preseason tournament on Maui, Lee drove for a takedown so hard that she knocked the wind out of her opponent. The Maui official, unused to seeing a girl hit so hard, ruled the takedown an illegal slam and forfeited the match, Kawachi said. "I wish more girls could do takedowns like that," he says.

Valdez also comes from a judo background and started wrestling with girls at Roosevelt High when she was in the fourth grade. She has since dropped judo but, barring injury, is on line to be the state’s first four-time girls champion wrestler.

She has placed fourth and fifth at the U.S. Girls Wrestling nationals the last two years.

Others the Menehune are counting on include senior Diane Kau, state 2000 bronze medalist at 130; senior Stacy Pak (103); and senior captain Jessica Toyama, the state’s fifth-place finisher last year at 98 pounds, the Moanalua student body president, and an accomplished dancer).

It’s easy to see why Castle coach Guerrero says, "If we don’t win, I’ll still be proud of them."

NOTES: Nanakuli’s Ashley Gaspar, defending champion and top seeded at 155 pounds, also is ranked nationally by the USGWA. Other 2000 champions back are McKinley’s Melissa Orden (103), Mililani’s Shani Alvarado (up from 130 to 140), and Kamehameha’s Iwalani Fonoimoana (up from 175 to 220). . . . This is an experienced field; 32 of the 58 wrestlers who placed sixth or higher last year are back. . . . Hawai‘i was one of the first three states in the nation to have an all-girls state championship. The first one, won by McKinley, was in 1998. Moanalua won in 1999 and 2000.