Beginning & end: Powell, Fernando earn top honors
The Maui News 2022 MIL Tennis All-Stars
Seabury Hall’s Nikki Fernando capped her high school career with an MIL individual title and a third-place finish at the state championships last month. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos
Justin Powell helped lead the Baldwin boys to an MIL team title and later won the MIL individiual title before making the state quarterfinals to end his freshman season.
Seabury Hall’s Nikki Fernando capped her high school career with an MIL individual title and a third-place finish at the state championships last month. The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photos
Justin Powell helped lead the Baldwin boys to an MIL team title and later won the MIL individiual title before making the state quarterfinals to end his freshman season.
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As Seabury Hall senior Nikki Fernando finishes her high school tennis career with honors, Baldwin freshman Justin Powell is only getting started.
The Maui Interscholastic League tennis singles champions, who were also the highest individual Maui finishers at the state tournament in May, are The Maui News' MIL Tennis Players of the Year.
"It means so much, and coming out of a successful season and being able to have that label that, like, all of it paid off," said Fernando, who finished third at the HMSA/HHSAA State Tennis Championships at Royal Lahaina Tennis Ranch last month. "It really puts a label on everything that I've built and I feel on top of the world, you know, and having so much support from everyone and even telling people that I got Player of the Year is just so rewarding, and showing that all those hours of practice and coming in earlier and staying a bit after is all worth it."
Powell, who also led the Baldwin boys to an MIL team title this season, won his first- and second-round matches at the state tournament to qualify for the quarterfinals -- the furthest an MIL boy advanced this year -- before falling to eventual champion Payton Jim On of Punahou.
"It is a great honor to be selected for this award as there are many good players on Maui," Powell said Tuesday via phone while in Southern California, where he is participating in the Weil Tennis Academy.
Voted by the league's coaches, Maui High coach Michele Luna was selected MIL Girls Coach of the Year while Baldwin coach Wayne Feike was named MIL Boys Coach of the Year after guiding their respective teams to titles at the MIL championships in April.
On the last official day of classes for Seabury students in May, Fernando and her senior friends were discussing their final hours of school.
"It's so different not going to practice anymore, only being able to see my now-past teammates in the halls and stuff like that, and today I was asking my friends, 'Has it hit you guys?' and they were asking me the same thing," she said via phone last month. "I think it will hit me when I'm driving home on my way from school and realizing it's like my last time, so it has not hit me yet, but it will soon."
Like Powell, Fernando was a standout freshman. She was the MIL runner-up and a state quarterfinalist in 2019 before her sophomore and junior seasons were wiped out by the pandemic.
As she heads to the University of Rhode Island in the fall, Fernando looks forward to getting full-time NCAA Division I training and attention to tennis that "I've been wanting for so long," as well as bonding with her new teammates and playing in the Atlantic 10 Conference.
"Tennis is such an independent sport and I have been very independent with it even before my high school career, so I think the biggest lesson I learned is that, like, winning is always a top thing that you want, but I think I learned that winning can be in the memories and relationships that you create with people," she said. "I'm going to take that with me in college because no matter how good my team does or how bad they do, it'll just be cool doing it with them and that's definitely how it felt this year coming back from the seasons lost, so I'll take that with me."
Fernando is joined on the MIL girls All-Star team by Seabury teammate Alexa de Crinis; Maui High's Hie Luna-Beamer, Jordyn Luna, Erica Gumboc and Sophia Kato; King Kekaulike's Paula Esteve Rodriguez; and Kamehameha Maui's Beryl Lau.
Powell is joined on the MIL boys All-Star team by Bears teammates Ean Allencastre-Higuchi and Kai Matsui; Seabury Hall's Manoli Placourakis; Lahainaluna's Chris Mueller; Indi Petrone and Alex Ferayorni from Kihei Charter; and Hana's Alexander Smith.
Powell's favorite part about his freshman year was "watching my teammate play the clutch match for the MIL title, playing against a variety of players from different schools and being part of a team atmosphere."
Though early in his prep career, Powell is no stranger to tennis. He started playing when he was 6 years old, saying that he enjoys this sport because "I love to compete."
"Competition is a key part of my motivation to play, as is my love of the sport and having a supportive father, coach," he said.
As a sophomore, he hopes to continue to chip away at his goal of becoming the state singles champion.
"Teamwork, hard work and good preparation are the ingredients to success," he said.
* Dakota Grossman is at dgrossman@mauinews.com.