State champion Taylor Lau of St. Francis is the top seed in the Clay Benham ILH tennis tournament next week in girls singles, with Punahou’s Kawika Lam predictably in the top spot in boys singles.
The tournament begins on Monday at Central Oahu Regional Park and will declare champions on Wednesday.
Lau gets a bye in the first round, her first match will be between the winner between Allyson Trang of Hawaii Baptist and Niki Tamashiro of Punahou.
Skyla Alcon of Mid-Pacific, Punahou’s Ashley Ishimura and Tristen Bryant-Otake of Mid-Pacific are the other top four seeds.
A rematch of last year’s ILH final is projected this year according to the seedings, with last year’s league champ, Punahou’s Lam, seeded first and Hawaii Baptist’s Jeffrey Liang seeded second. Lam beat Liang 6-4, 6-3 in the title match last year.
Lam is the two-time defending state champion and will be trying to win his third after the ILH tournament. No boy has won three straight state titles since Bill Bartlett of Punahou in 1975-77. Lam won a state doubles title as a freshman.
McKenna Fijitani of Punahou and Kamehameha’s Andrew Yip round out the top four seeds.
Punahou earned the top seed in the boys doubles, with Austin Hamamoto and Travis Lau getting the honors. Jordan Azuma and Phuc Hyunh of Iolani are seeded second with Punahou’s Kyle Motoshige and Michael Chen third. Riley inn and Dylan Lawton of Iolani are the fourth seeds.
The Buffanblu also have the favorite in girls doubles, with Katreina Corpuz and Alyssia Fossorier entering the tournament at the team to beat. Laura Okazaki and Chloe Miwa of Iolani are their greatest challengers in the second spot with Taylor Wardwell and Betsy Wo of Punahou sitting third and fellow Buffanblu Becky Yim and Rachel Rosenfeldt in the fourth spot.
Here are the full brackets:
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