Four boys earn fourth state wrestling medals

Four boys this year — Kapolei’s Jayson Pagurayan, ‘Iolani’s Colby Watase and KJ Pascua, and Antonio Ruiz of Moanalua — swept through the first day of the Chevron/HHSAA State Wrestling Championships to guarantee themselves their fourth state medal. They were certainly thinking of championships at that time, but to reach the podium four straight years is an accomplishment in itself.

Pascua was the only senior in the group to earn the elusive state title. The other three earned some select company with that fourth medal. I ran a cursory search and found only four wrestlers before this year who had the distinction on taking four medals away from the state tournament but never winning a championship.

I am sure there are more, but the ones that popped out at me are Arthur Hoke of Waiakea (1995-98), Punahou’s Bryant Fukushima (2009-12), Mililani’s Zach Diamond (2013-16) and Ponce Raquidan of Molokai (1989-92). That’s it. Ever. And it happened twice this year.

Digging further, Ruiz and Watase might be the only ones to win four state medals and never reach the championship in his weight class. Ruiz took fourth this year and Watase placed third but took a piece of ‘Iolani’s team title home from the Blaisdell with him.

Pagurayan finished sixth for the second straight year but wrestled in the final two years ago. He and Ruiz are the first male wrestlers in their program’s history to place in states four times.

Here is Hawaii Prep World’s list of state medalists. Some are missing and there are some spelling errors, please put corrections in the comments.