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Ichihara, Motoyoshi shine at Point Break
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Posted on Jul 29 2005
A year after the three-month series came to a close, the Pacific Islands Club packed the thrills and spills of the 7th Annual Point Break Challenge into one frantic day in San Antonio, and Mieko Motoyoshi and Keoni Ichihara walked away as the sultans of surf.
Ichihara had the most difficult challenge of the day as he edged out seven competitors in the heavily contested men’s 18-and-over division that included last year’s champion Tito Paez.
Ichihara narrowly unseated powerful Paez last Saturday by one tally with a display of gnarly tricks that netted him the title of tiny board titan with 79 points, while the runner-up finished with 78. Up-and-comer Isaac Park scored a respectable 75 while first-term Clubmates Terrence Tun (74) and Paul Gauci (73) rounded out the top five for the men. Recently transplanted Guamanian Adam Safer racked up a 68 in his first outing, while volleyball player extraordinaire Marino Pungilug (57) and Jerald Domingo (48) did not finish the day the way they expected.
Quincy Johnson just slipped under the radar to become the champion of the 13-17 year-old division with a challenge-wide high score of 83 to edge out Tirso Adriatico and Wylie Paez who tied for second with identical marks of 82. Fredo Paez also came to the park for the rush of the Flow Rider, but fell six points off of the pace with a 76.
On the women’s side of the competition, multi-sport maven Motoyoshi carved her way to the top of the 18-and-over division with 75 points to cast aside “Catchy” Cathy Ton (73) and Mary Deleon Guerrero (72).
Motoyoshi had nothing but love for her fellow Clubmates, but had her way with the waves to capture her first title.
Much like last year, Keisha Paez ran unopposed in the 13-17 year-old division, but that didn’t stop her from reaching her personal standard of excellence in San Antonio by totaling 81 points. Paez took the title for the second year in a row, but first timers from Mother Russia landed the top prizes in the 12-and-under division as Maikal Dezhurov (74) and Sasha Kontayev (65) went Vladivostok on the wave blaster.
