Hall pass: Sabrina Hollins

A case for Hall of Honor candidacy is usually made in an athlete’s freshman year, when they start their journey toward multiple state titles.

That is not how Waipahu’s Sabrina Hollins played it, though, but it worked out just fine.

Hollins didn’t compete in a varsity sport until her junior year, but did enough in two years to be inducted June 7 at Dole Cannery Square’s Pomaikai Ballroom.

Not that there weren’t signs of her future in her junior year. She joined the Waipahu track and field team and promptly won OIA JV titles in the shot put and discus. She also played two years of basketball on the junior varsity.

From there, Hollins joined the wrestling team and picked up the sport quickly enough to rule the OIA West before taking fourth at state. Then she set the stage for the most remarkable week of the year for a high school athlete.

Hollins jumped into national prominence as a judoka in her junior season, sweeping OIA and state titles before earning a national title over the summer. Even though the sports run in the same season, she stuck with track and field and turned her JV sweep into a varsity double with golds in the discus in the shot put and discus. The demand of two sports took its toll, though, and she only finished seventh in the shot in the state meet.

She earned her first OIA wrestling title as a senior the next winter, and made it through a tough bracket at states with first-period pins to finish second to future Hall of Honor wrestler Lalelei Mataafa of Lahianaluna. It was Mataafa’s third title in as many tries.

There was no time to rest after that, as Hollins lept into her final judo and track and field seasons. She won her second straight state judo title on May 9 with an ippon in under a minute then had just six days to prepare for the state track and field meet, and she had to get ready while nursing an injured (non-throwing) shoulder.

All she did from there was take gold in the shot put and silver in the discus, gritting through the pain with every throw. She fouled on her first two throws with the disc before unleashing a toss of 106 feet, 7 inches to sit fifth after the first day. The shot put was not so dramatic, Hollins threw the weight farther than 42 feet twice, the top two efforts of the day.

She fouled out twice more in the discus finals, but had an 131-foot effort on one throw to take second to Kailua’s Patria Vaimaona. She started the shot put finals with another throw farther than 40 feet then fouled out on the rest but still outclassed the field.

Even injured, she was a mere four inches off the state meet record set by Kapolei’s Charlinda Ioane in 2012.

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Hall of Honor Members