A bright green band on the handle of Spencer Travalino’s tennis racket gave the Kealakehe senior the short memory he sorely needed Saturday in Keauhou.
While experiencing the frustration of not cashing in on five match points and seeing Waiakea’s Isaiah Brilhante break his serve twice in the second set of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation boys singles final, Travalino kept looking down at the single word on his racket’s band: focus.
The band reminded Travalino to forget the past and live in the present, and that approach helped the top seed accomplish something he never thought he’d do when he took up tennis during his freshman year.
Travalino defeated second-seeded Brilhante 6-2, 7-5 to claim his third consecutive BIIF title, highlighting a day in which tournament favorites did not disappoint.
Just three years ago, Travalino’s teammate, Shoyo Tsukamoto, encouraged him to give tennis a try just before the 2008-09 high school season. Travalino lost in the second round of the BIIF tournament that year.
“For the next three years in a row, to win it, that’s pretty cool,” Travalino said.
Two other No. 1 seeds cruised to victory against No. 2 seeds, with Waiakea sophomore Sarah Dvorak repeating her girls singles title with a 6-0, 6-2 win over Kealakehe’s Daisy Green and the Waveriders’ Chandler Daub and Jeffrey Gelman winning their third boys doubles title in the past four years by beating the Warriors’ Samuel Matsuura and Christopher Simons 6-1, 6-1.
Hilo’s Genevieve Flaspohler and Kelly Soares, the second-seeded girls doubles team, also rolled, defeating Waiakea’s Leisha Ishikawa and Shayla Kushi, the fourth seeds, 6-1, 6-1.
But Travalino had to work much harder for his crowning moment.
The Kealakehe senior went up a break at 5-4 in the second set, putting him in position to serve out the match.
After a Brilhante unforced error, Travalino then strung together two forehand winners, giving him three match points. But Brilhante erased all of them, getting to deuce with a backhand down the line.
The Waiakea junior fended off two more match points, but his defensive lob on the next one sailed just long, giving Travalino his three-peat.
“I felt relieved,” Travalino said. “I was getting pretty frustrated.”
Travalino experienced more of that frustration earlier in the set, when he was up a break at 5-3. Brilhante erased three break points on his serve, then broke Travalino to get the set back on serve.
Throughout it all, Travalino turned to a little companion.
“Every time I look down (at my racket), I read that band,” Travalino said.
Needing less than an hour to beat Hawaii Prep’s Zane Moran earlier in the day, Travalino entered the final with a big advantage. Brilhante rallied from a set down to beat Hilo’s Daniel Tada 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 10-4 in a tense match that took 1 hour, 55 minutes. After the match, the Waiakea junior had just two hours to rest for the final.
Regardless, Brilhante displayed potent ground strokes in the final, enjoying a 13-9 edge in winners. However, Travalino played cleaner tennis. He had 37 unforced errors compared to Brilhante’s 45.
Travalino also extended points with strong defensive skills on the baseline, making Brilhante exert himself to earn points.
“He’s going to grind it out and wait until you make a mistake,” Brilhante said.
With Brilhante in control of a key point in the first set, Travalino ran down two volleys before delivering a backhand winner down the line. A Brilhante double fault on the next point gave Travalino the first of his two service breaks in the first set.
Brilhante was pleased about making his first BIIF singles final, but he wanted to accomplish more in it.
“I did what I was supposed to do, but I couldn’t go that extra mile,” Brilhante said.
After making the quarterfinals at the Hawaii High School Athletic Association state tournament last year, Travalino has set a goal of reaching the final this season.
It’s a familiar place for Dvorak, who fell to Mililani’s Alyssa Tobita 7-6 (7-3), 7-5 in last year’s state final.
The sophomore entered her BIIF final having dropped just two games in league competition. Dvorak lost two more games to Green in the second set, but the Kealakehe senior is no slouch.
Earlier this year, Dvorak defeated Green 6-4, 6-2 in USTA junior competition — an environment Dvorak believes has little pressure to perform because players “just play for themselves.”
Dvorak said she feels more pressure as a member of Waiakea’s team, and she came away happy with her performance on Saturday.
“My serves felt a lot better than they did in any other match,” Dvorak said.
Dvorak said she idolized Kealakehe graduate Sayo Tsukamoto, who won her fourth consecutive BIIF singles title in 2010. Dvorak would like to match Tsukamoto’s feat in the future. For now, she’s focused on a state title, and she wants to cut down on the number of short balls she hit to Tobita in last year’s final.
“I’m going to try and keep the intensity up the whole match and keep the ball deep,” Dvorak said.
Daub and Gelman also have high aspirations at the state tournament.
The pair entered the BIIF tournament as the heavy favorite, but Gelman said he and Daub felt no pressure going into their final against Matsuura and Simons.
“We just had the mentality to have fun and enjoy the whole match,” Gelman said. “Our volleys were steady, and we had solid returns.”
Flaspohler and Soares fared well in those categories in their match against Ishikawa and Kushi.
The two entered the tournament having played just two matches as a doubles tandem, with Flaspohler going 4-0 in singles play and Soares winning all three of her singles matches.
But Vikings coach Wayne Yamada thought Flaspohler and Soares had the well-rounded skills needed to perform well in doubles play.
“Both of them can play the baseline, and both of them can play the net,” Yamada said.
Soares echoed those sentiments.
“We’re compatible,” Soares said. “If someone misses, we’re always there for each other.”
Flaspohler teamed with Grace Riley to earn runner-up honors in last year’s BIIF tournament. Despite having played with Soares just twice before Thursday, she thought a BIIF title was realistic.
“We’ve both gotten so much better than last year,” she said.
