KALAHEO — Daniel Quinlan and Edison Hidalgo are heading for the national competition. Quinlan, who is home from Lahainaluna High School for spring break, and Hidalgo, a visitor from Maui who also attends Lahainaluna, were spending their final nights here,
KALAHEO — Daniel Quinlan and Edison Hidalgo are heading for the national competition.
Quinlan, who is home from Lahainaluna High School for spring break, and Hidalgo, a visitor from Maui who also attends Lahainaluna, were spending their final nights here, helping the younger, aspiring wrestlers, and finished by wrestling some of Kaua‘i’s youth in their age and weight classes.
Coach Mac Pigott of the Westside Wrestling Club said he will be sponsoring both wrestlers to USA Wrestling’s Senior Nationals competition in Las Vegas which will take place during the Apr. 22 weekend.
“It’s one of the larger wrestling matches with 20 mats,” Pigott said.
Pigott said having Quinlan, who finished last season’s Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association’s state championship as the silver medalist, and Hidalgo, who finished that same championship in fourth place, should be good exposure for them because of the high quality of wrestlers who will be competing.
Piggott is hopeful that the trip to the national competition will help the pair improve on their standings at next season’s HHSAA state championships.
In addition to encouraging the younger wrestlers, Quinlan and Hidalgo had bouts of their own. Quinlan wrestled in three bouts while Hidalgo matched up in two bouts for the night.
Quinlan swept all three of his bouts, his first two coming on technical falls against Kaulana Kaui and Kory Kaneholani-Davis. He took his third match on points against Troy Wong, all three of the wrestlers hailing from the Eastside wrestling program.
Scott Kaui, a Kaua‘i Police Activities League coordinators for the Eastside wrestling program, said both wrestlers were good people and clearly demonstrated that at the Thursday night gathering at the Kato Gym across from Kalaheo School.
“Even though his (Quinlan) talent level was way above the other kids he wrestled, he was a true sportsman and did not pulverize his opponents,” Scott said.
Scott lamented the fact that Quinlan is a Kaua‘i boy and would’ve represented Kaua‘i well when he finished in second place.
The Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation currently does not have a wrestling program in place.
Against Kaneholani-Davis, Hidalgo won the match on a technical fall while against Kaulana, earned the win on points.
“In both his matches, he wrestled opponents who weighed at least 35 pounds heavier than himself,” Scott said. “Against Kaulana, an eighth grader, this was the most exciting of the night as it went back and forth through the entire match.”
Mark Ozaki, KPAL co-coordinator, said the matches Thursday as well as upcoming matches, are scrimmage matches only. There are no uniforms, and team points are not recorded.
But with the popularity of the youngsters involved in the sport, there is still the tournament on Maui as well as a trip to O‘ahu that wrestlers need to prepare for.
Ozaki said a lot of the older wrestlers have dropped out of the program in favor of playing football at the high school level, but for those who remain, KPAL will conduct two more series of scrimmage tournament to help the remaining wrestlers.
Scott described Thursday night’s scrimmage as pretty even with the Eastside wrestlers taking most of the matches involving elementary school aged wrestlers and the Westside taking all of the older division matches.
Among those wrestling were two females from the Westside program, Tisha and Bula Alo. Tisha took her two matches against Michael Gabriel and Nick Bailey on points.
Bula worked hard against Bailey and that paid off as she earned the win on points.
Ozaki said the wrestlers will have a bye this Thursday, but will return to the mats at 6 p.m., April 10 at the Kapa‘a Armory.
