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Ava Cepeda knows how to start the Manoa Cup — now it is time to finish.
The New Mexico sophomore and 2025 HHSAA queen from Kahuku fired a 67 in blustery afternoon winds to post the lowest score among 89 competitors — male and female — in the qualifying round for the 117th Manoa Cup at Oahu Country Club on Monday.
“It was a good day, I like where I am and I am excited for match play tomorrow,” Cepeda said. “You just kind of have to go out and not put too much pressure on yourself and shoot the best score you can.”
Cepeda took a bogey on her fourth hole before catching fire with a chip-in eagle on No. 6 and birdies on 7, 9, 13, 15 and 17 with no more blemishes. It was her second time as the medalist going into match play. She had a 67 two years ago before falling in the semifinals to ‘Iolani product Jasmine Wong, who went on to win the title. Last year Cepeda shot a 74 in qualifying but made the final before losing to Kara Kaneshiro.
Cepeda played and rode with Wong on Monday, and the two elite players were the class of the women’s field. Wong shot a 68, followed by Makena Yonemura, Mia Nakaoka and Madison Kuratani with 71s. Cepeda and Wong can’t meet again until Friday’s final, if they make it that far. Both women were all business, with Cepeda often in the cart tallying up her score while her three other partners were still putting out.
“I feel like it is a good thing, I don’t know,” Cepeda said. “I am already kind of a fast player, so if I hit my putt I just tap it in and leave the green.”
Cepeda will play Varnika Ancheta this afternoon, while Wong takes on Samantha Monroe a half hour later. Ancheta and Monroe made the cut of 16 players by two strokes with scores of 80.
Stroke play and match play are two different animals, but if the cartmates were playing head-to-head on Monday, Cepeda would have won 2-up after losing each of the first four holes.
Spencer Shishido fired a 68 in men’s qualifying to take the medalist spot alongside Drew Tom. The only blemish on Shishido’s card was a double bogey on the par-3 16th, but he offset it with a bounce-back birdie on 17 for his fifth red number of the round. Tom had a much more eventful round in the second-to-last group, starting with a 32 on the back nine with birdies on 15-16-17, and he made it to 5 under par before three bogeys and a birdie on the way home.
Shishido, a 2006 ‘Iolani grad, shot a 70 in qualifying last year on his way to the round of 16. This is Tom’s first attempt at a Manoa Cup after helping Punahou to the HHSAA team title at the Kaneohe Klipper in May with a 25th-place finish as a non-scoring entrant as a sophomore.
With defending champion Remington Hirano not in the field to take the top seed, Shishido grabbed that spot and earned an extra bonus. The cut for the 64-man field came in at 84, with three players — Reid Yamane, Paul Loui and Peter Tamminga — in a playoff for two spots for the right to face someone who shot 17 strokes better than them in the first round. Loui waited patiently at the scorer’s tables for his competitors, but Yamane and Tamminga failed to show up in time.
Loui will meet Tom on the first tee this morning at 9:24 a.m. and Shishido can sleep in. The top seed hasn’t had a bye in the tournament since before World War II and has won the tournament outright in three of the past six years. The medalist hasn’t lost in the first round since 2014, when Jun Ho Won upset Jared Lydon, and that streak continues.
In addition to Shishido and Tom, five players beat the hilly course with scores under par. Derek Chinen, Dane Watanabe, Ryan Takeshita, Taylor George and Coel Berardy all shot 70 on the par-71 layout. Nick Gerard, Chance Wilson, Zachary Sagayaga and Daniel Cho came in right on par. There are only two past champions in the field, with 2023-24 winner Joshua Hayashida and four-time champion Brandan Kop (1983, ’86, ’97, ’98) shooting 74s.
The tournament winnows competitors down every day until the women’s final on Friday and the men’s championship on Saturday.
Continue reading...
The New Mexico sophomore and 2025 HHSAA queen from Kahuku fired a 67 in blustery afternoon winds to post the lowest score among 89 competitors — male and female — in the qualifying round for the 117th Manoa Cup at Oahu Country Club on Monday.
“It was a good day, I like where I am and I am excited for match play tomorrow,” Cepeda said. “You just kind of have to go out and not put too much pressure on yourself and shoot the best score you can.”
Cepeda took a bogey on her fourth hole before catching fire with a chip-in eagle on No. 6 and birdies on 7, 9, 13, 15 and 17 with no more blemishes. It was her second time as the medalist going into match play. She had a 67 two years ago before falling in the semifinals to ‘Iolani product Jasmine Wong, who went on to win the title. Last year Cepeda shot a 74 in qualifying but made the final before losing to Kara Kaneshiro.
Cepeda played and rode with Wong on Monday, and the two elite players were the class of the women’s field. Wong shot a 68, followed by Makena Yonemura, Mia Nakaoka and Madison Kuratani with 71s. Cepeda and Wong can’t meet again until Friday’s final, if they make it that far. Both women were all business, with Cepeda often in the cart tallying up her score while her three other partners were still putting out.
“I feel like it is a good thing, I don’t know,” Cepeda said. “I am already kind of a fast player, so if I hit my putt I just tap it in and leave the green.”
Cepeda will play Varnika Ancheta this afternoon, while Wong takes on Samantha Monroe a half hour later. Ancheta and Monroe made the cut of 16 players by two strokes with scores of 80.
Stroke play and match play are two different animals, but if the cartmates were playing head-to-head on Monday, Cepeda would have won 2-up after losing each of the first four holes.
Spencer Shishido fired a 68 in men’s qualifying to take the medalist spot alongside Drew Tom. The only blemish on Shishido’s card was a double bogey on the par-3 16th, but he offset it with a bounce-back birdie on 17 for his fifth red number of the round. Tom had a much more eventful round in the second-to-last group, starting with a 32 on the back nine with birdies on 15-16-17, and he made it to 5 under par before three bogeys and a birdie on the way home.
Shishido, a 2006 ‘Iolani grad, shot a 70 in qualifying last year on his way to the round of 16. This is Tom’s first attempt at a Manoa Cup after helping Punahou to the HHSAA team title at the Kaneohe Klipper in May with a 25th-place finish as a non-scoring entrant as a sophomore.
With defending champion Remington Hirano not in the field to take the top seed, Shishido grabbed that spot and earned an extra bonus. The cut for the 64-man field came in at 84, with three players — Reid Yamane, Paul Loui and Peter Tamminga — in a playoff for two spots for the right to face someone who shot 17 strokes better than them in the first round. Loui waited patiently at the scorer’s tables for his competitors, but Yamane and Tamminga failed to show up in time.
Loui will meet Tom on the first tee this morning at 9:24 a.m. and Shishido can sleep in. The top seed hasn’t had a bye in the tournament since before World War II and has won the tournament outright in three of the past six years. The medalist hasn’t lost in the first round since 2014, when Jun Ho Won upset Jared Lydon, and that streak continues.
In addition to Shishido and Tom, five players beat the hilly course with scores under par. Derek Chinen, Dane Watanabe, Ryan Takeshita, Taylor George and Coel Berardy all shot 70 on the par-71 layout. Nick Gerard, Chance Wilson, Zachary Sagayaga and Daniel Cho came in right on par. There are only two past champions in the field, with 2023-24 winner Joshua Hayashida and four-time champion Brandan Kop (1983, ’86, ’97, ’98) shooting 74s.
The tournament winnows competitors down every day until the women’s final on Friday and the men’s championship on Saturday.
Continue reading...
