Friday morning, 18 of Kaua‘i’s athletes along with a group of seven coaches and chaperones will make modern history when they become the first group from the Garden Island to take part in a state wrestling tournament on Maui. With
Friday morning, 18 of Kaua‘i’s athletes along with a group of seven coaches and chaperones will make modern history when they become the first group from the Garden Island to take part in a state wrestling tournament on Maui.
With the exception of a few members, the traveling team which includes one female member, have been meeting twice a week at the covered Chiefess Kamakahelei School under the K-PAL wrestling program headed up by coach Tom Perry.
Perry, who has been wrestling for as long as he can remember because his dad was a wrestling coach, gets help from assistant coaches Michael Thompson, Samuel Willis, and Paul Zina.
For Perry, the twice weekly practices are a dream come true since he has always wanted to have a wrestling program on the island since he arrived here about 25 years ago.
Eventually, Perry would like to see a team established at the high school level, working towards becoming island-wide before embarking on being sanctioned as a KIF (Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation) sport.
That move might come sooner than Perry realizes as the sole female wrestler in the program, Kailee Andrade, is a freshman who is a member of the KIF girls basketball championship team, the Kaua‘i High School Red Raiders.
Transferring here from Maui, Andrade says this is her second year of wrestling and is happy that there is a program in place. Beyond that, Andrade is focussed to the point where all she sees is, “Take ‘em down, and try to pin ‘em”
She does admit that the sport is good and does help in her other arenas.
The group that will travel to Maui include wrestlers as young as 8 and 9-year-olds to adults, noted Crystal Kaya, one of the chaperones whose son Keenan is one of the youngest wrestlers going to the state tournament.
But, the age range doesn’t bother the coaching staff and chaperones as Perry says that wrestling is a unique sport in that participants are put in weight classes so there is no handicap for being too short, or too small.
As testiment to this aspect, a scale is an integral part of the wrestling practice setup.
The AAU Regional State Tournament takes place this weekend on the Valley Isle, and is considered one of the biggest tournaments in the state, attracting about 350 participants.
Perry, who has been to tournaments before, is anxious to get his Kaua‘i wrestlers to Maui, noting, “They’ve come a long way from when they first stepped on the mats in December.”
“It’s a whole different experience,” Perry explained. “For these wrestlers, it’ll be like a new beginning. It starts from here (the tournament experience). They’ve all been working real hard, and I have a good feeling about how well they’ll do.”
To help prepare the members for the tournament, Perry said the weekly practices were increased from two to three times a week starting last month.
Team members travelling to Maui include Keenan Kaya, Levi Silva, Trey Aguano, Kanoa Fujita, Jake Ozake, Richard Kaui, Ross Ozaki, Richard Kaui, Isaac Silva, Jr., Richmond Yee, John Pearson, Maika Yee, Kailee Andrade, Kristopher Scholl, Archilles Singson, Ivan Kuapahi, and Todd Kane.
Chaperones include Crystal Kaya, Mark Ozaki, the coaching staff, and Shelly Teraoka.
Sponsors for the program include the Kaua‘i Police Department and the Mayor’s Anti-Drug program.
For those interested in the sport, Perry notes that the team is open to boys and girls aged from 8 to 19 years of age.
Their group meets twice weekly, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Chiefess Kamakahelei School.
