Yokota’s Erica Haas darts around the bases for an inside-the-park home run during the Far East Division II softball tournament. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
2024 was a year for breaking records on tracks and cross country courses, for last-second thrillers on the basketball courts and a football team doing something not done in 12 years.
Athletics involving DODEA-Pacific schools from Misawa to Guam provided thrilling finishes and games of can-you-top-this from one end of the calendar to the other. And a new sport was added to the calendar: Girls wrestling.
Here’s a look back at the year’s Top 10 stories involving DODEA-Pacific teams and athletes:
Kadena’s Tyler Smith boots the ball upfield against Okinawa Christian’s Yu Sakane during an Okinawa boys soccer match. The Panthers won 10-1. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
10. Kadena boys soccer goes unbeaten with Far East Division I title.
In a chilly, driving rain the previous season, Kadena watched a 2-0 halftime lead evaporate as host Nile C. Kinnick rallied to capture the Far East Division I Tournament title.
The weather couldn’t have been nicer on April 30 at Humphreys as senior Tyler Smith and brothers Yoshua and Elijah Whipp led the way for the Panthers to win 5-2 and snatch the D-I title away from Kinnick in a rematch of the 2023 final.
“We had to experience that last year,” Panthers coach Abe Summers said. “Sometimes, it’s painful, but it’s an experience you have to have and you learn to close out games.”
The victory capped a 21-0 season for Kadena, in which Smith scored 28 goals, sophomore Elijah Whipp added 15 assists and 14 goals and senior Yoshua Whipp had 25 goals and seven assists.
Kadena also got a boost from Jelani McGhee, a freshman who was by no means new to the sport. The defensive midfielder pitched in with five goals and 11 assists.
Kadena right-hander Nao Grove kicks and delivers against Kubasaki during a DODEA-Okinawa softball game. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
9. Overcoming injuries, Kadena softball makes it back-to-back D1 titles
Things couldn’t have looked worse for Kadena at the start of the softball season: The Panthers’ starting pitcher and leadoff batter, Julia Petruff (elbow), and her twin sister Jessica (knee) were sidelined by injuries.
Next man up, coach Joy Sims said. That meant inserting junior right-hander Nao Grove onto the mound, where she proved more than up to the task.
Grove started eight games, getting seven wins, before Petruff returned to the mound for three victories and a save in relief of Grove in the D-1 final, a 10-5 win April 30 over Kubasaki.
“I had 100 percent confidence in her,” Sims said of Petruff, who gave up seven hits and six walks and struck out 18 in 12 innings. “She capitalized on the opportunity and proved exactly who she was.”
It was Kadena’s second straight D-I title and Pacific-record seventh overall.
The Panthers also got huge contributions from veteran catcher Emaleigh Appleton (.654 batting average, 15 RBIs), infielder Lia Connolly (.576, 19) and rookie shortstop Jada Wolfgang (.649, 21) during the season.
Humphreys’ Chloe Lee won the Far East girls singles title and then followed it up with a Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference crown in South Korea. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
8. Lee rides tide of motivation to Korea, Far East tennis titles
It took a year of waiting, but Chloe Lee finally achieved all she could on the tennis courts.
The Humphreys sophomore captured the Far East Division I and overall girls singles tennis titles on Oct. 18 at Iwakuni. Then, a week later, Lee also grabbed the Korean-American Interscholastic Activities Conference singles crown.
“I couldn’t believe I had done that,” Lee said. “I feel like all the hard work paid off.”
She had gone unbeaten the year before as a freshman but was left off the team traveling to Far East on Okinawa. There were older players who had paid their dues and were in line ahead of Lee, but she said, “that kind of motivated me.”
That motivation carried her past Kubasaki’s Lan Legros 4-0, 2-4, 7-3 in the Far East D-I singles final.
In the new Far East format, the D-I champion also got to play the D-II winner, which in this case was Moa Best of E.J. King, who had won the Far East the year before. Lee downed Best 4-2, 4-2 for the overall title just hours after topping Legros.
And the following week at Chadwick International School in Incheon, Lee beat top-seeded Skylar Cho of the host Dolphins for the KAIAC crown.
“This was kind of a one-plus-one deal,” Lee said of her title sweep.
Yokota's Braedan Raybon shoots against Perry's Kameron Ramos. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
7. Yokota softball, boys basketball make it back-to-back titles
Neither team was considered odds-on to win their respective Far East titles. But when the chips were down, Yokota’s softball and boys basketball teams were up to the task.
They each won their second straight Division II titles – the second time each of the teams had won back-to-back Far Easts in a span of nine years, twice each in 2015-16 and 2023-24.
Led by senior Braedan Raybon and coached by Dan Galvin – who had said he was retiring the year before but came back anyway – the Panthers routed Matthew C. Perry 70-47 in the D-I basketball final last Jan. 31.
Raybon scored eight of his 15 points in the third quarter to help the Panthers pull away. “I went from being a swing player with bad knees onto the varsity. … I saw the opportunity and I took it,” Raybon said.
Yokota went 18-12 overall, but caught fire in the three-day Far East tournament, going 3-1 in round-robin play, then 3-0 in the playoffs.
On the diamond, the Panthers (19-3) were thought to be on a par with E.J. King (21-6) and the team that finished second behind Yokota in 2023, Matthew C. Perry.
And deep into the final last May 2, it looked like the Cobras were a shoo-in to capture their first D-II crown until freshman infielder Cocoro Jones came to Yokota’s rescue.
She doubled in the tying run and scored on Zaylee Gubler’s infield single as the Panthers rallied from three runs down to beat the Cobras 7-6 in the final.
“She’s an athlete,” coach Steven Cruz said of Jones. “She goes up there, she’s determined, she puts the ball in play, she’s just great all around.”
Gubler and Erica Haas each took turns getting victories for Yokota in the semifinal and the title game and combined to go 4-for-7 in the final, with Gubler driving in two runs.
Kinnick's Kennedy Hamilton skies for the ball against St. Mary's. The Red Devils edged the Titans 64-62, dethroning the defending champions. (Adrienne Barawid/Special to Stripes)
6. Late scores by Hamilton, Best help Cobras, Devils end droughts
It only matters which team is on top at the final buzzer, no matter when the winning points are scored.
Seniors Kennedy Hamilton and Moa Best provided proof positive of that adage and helped their respective teams end lengthy Far East basketball tournament title droughts.
Hamilton hit a bank shot with two seconds left to boost Nile C. Kinnick to an 83-82 win over Kadena on the Panthers’ home court, giving the Red Devils their first D-I title in six years.
“We had just put him back in the game,” coach Robert Stovall said. “Somehow, he got the ball and put it up.”
The Red Devils finished the season 20-4 and beat every team they had lost to earlier on, including a heartbreaking defeat against St. Mary’s in the American School In Japan Kanto Classic earlier in January.
“We avenged every loss we had, but the thing is, we were so evenly matched, St. Mary’s, Kadena and us,” Stovall said.
On the girls D-II side, E.J. King went 20-0, but the last victory was a squeaker, coming on a foul shot by Best with 10 seconds left, giving the Cobras a 29-28 over Zama on Jan. 31 at Yokota.
The victory gave the Cobras their fourth Far East D-II title, but their first since 1997.
“That clutch one. It only takes one and she did it,” said Best’s father and coach, McKinzy, of the title-clinching foul shot.
Like the Red Devils boys, King’s girls had come up short in a series of close contests, losing in the D-II basketball final the year before against Christian Academy Japan.
(Stars and Stripes)
5. Guam High achieves school first on cross country courses
As dominant as Guam High has been on the island’s cross country courses, the Panthers had never won a team title off island until Oct. 22 in Japan.
With junior Caleb Steele and sophomore Eldon Egbert posting Top 10 finishes on the boys side and freshman Naomi Spuler taking fifth on the girls side, the Panthers achieved a school first in the combined DODEA-Pacific Far East and Asia-Pacific Invitational meet.
The Panthers edged out Nile C. Kinnick 6 to 7 in the API team points standings and 5 to 6 in the DODEA-Pacific Division I standings.
“I’m at a loss for words,” longtime Panthers coach Joe Taitano said. “The kids did the work. I’m blessed with the kids we have this year. They listened, learned, persevered and performed. That helped make my job easier as a coach.”
Taitano had coached John F. Kennedy to a Far East cross country team title in 2000 but had never done the same with the Panthers.
Guam High’s title came on the heels of capturing the All-Island boys and girls team titles, the boys for the fifth straight year and the girls for the third time in four years.
Matthew C. Perry senior Jane Williams left high school career holding the Pacific region records in track and field’s 800-, 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs, along with the Pacific and DODEA-Pacific Far East meet records in cross country. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
4. Records tumble during spring track season
Apparently, Jane Williams and William Beardsley decided they didn’t do enough record-breaking as Matthew C. Perry and St. Mary’s track and cross country runners in 2023.
So the two seniors picked up where they left off. Williams broke the Pacific records in the girls 800-, 1,600- and 3,200-meter races, while Beardsley did the same in the boys 1,600 and 3,200.
Williams – now running cross country at Division I Utah State – took down the girls Pacific and Far East meet record in the 800, clocking 2:17.98. That beat the old Pacific record of 2:19.4 set in 1996 by Cathleen Nylin of Yokohama International.
She also beat her own Pacific record and bested the Far East 1,600 records, running 5:05.97. That topped her own Pacific mark of 5:06.99 set two weeks earlier and the Far East mark of 5:07.45 set in 2015 by Brittani Shappell of Seisen.
“It’s a passion for her,” Samurai cross country coach Brad Cramer said. “Her work ethic was inspirational to the team. Everybody wanted to be like Jane.”
Williams also beat the nine-year-old Pacific mark in the 3,200, clocking 11:00.89 on March 9.
She won the Far East cross country meet in October 2023, as did Beardsley, who’s now running for Michigan.
Beardsley spent most of last spring shaving seconds off his own 1,600-meter record, finishing with a 4:11.61 in the Far East meet on May 2. The next day, he took more than 1.5 seconds off his own 3,200-meter mark, clocking 9:10.67.
All told in two seasons, Beardsley took 21 seconds off the 3,200 record and 7.5 off the 1,600 compared to those who held it before him. Despite that, “I don’t really think there’s a ‘perfect race’ that I would run,” Beardsley said.
Humphreys’ Cassandra Jarzabek set a new record in girls cross country and teamed with Blackhawks’ senior Joey Brown to become overall API and Far East Division I relay race winner. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
3. Jarzabek takes cue from record holder, writes her own narrative
Cassandra Jarzabek must have been listening when Perry coach Cramer said “everybody wanted to be like Jane,” in reference to Samurai record-breaking distance runner Jane Williams.
The Humphreys sophomore wrote a narrative of her own in the cross country season, breaking the region’s 5-kilometer (3.12-mile) record and becoming the first Pacific runner ever to go under 18 minutes.
She also became the first DODEA-Pacific girls runner to capture both the Far East Division I and Asia-Pacific Invitational meet titles.
Her success might have taken root in the 2023 Far East meet at Misawa Air Base, where she suffered an injury and finished 12th overall, watching Williams win the D-II and overall championships.
“I didn’t want to feel that way again,” Jarzabek said. “I wanted to win. I wanted to beat her records.”
Jarzabek followed a carefully sculpted fitness, diet and distance program put together by her diet coach Madeline Riley of Yokota and Jeff Boele of Colorado’s Elevated Performance.
And with the exception of one race, the season-ending Korea league championship meet, Jarzabek was good to her word.
That was especially the case on Oct. 12, on her home course at Humphreys, where she ran 17 minutes, 58.0 seconds.
At the Far East-API meet, Jarzabek won the girls 5K despite making a wrong turn at race’s beginning, clocking 20:09.6. She then teamed with fellow sophomore Joey Brown to win the Far East-API team relay.
“They took it more seriously than most teen-agers and it paid off for them,” Humphreys coach Amy Gleason said.
Kadena's Jasmine Kinney pins Kubasaki's Isabella Sangiorgi in 36 seconds at 180 pounds during Wednesday's historic first dual meet between DODEA-Pacific girls wrestling teams. The Panthers won the meet 39-6. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
2. Girls take to the mat in DODEA-Pacific wrestling pilot program
For decades, DODEA-Pacific teams, coaches and schools have lobbied for girls to get their own wresting division so they wouldn’t continually go up against – and get beaten by – boys on a regular basis.
Finally in October, DODEA-Pacific gave the go-ahead for Kadena and Kubasaki, two of the largest schools in the region by enrollment, to begin girls wrestling teams under what officials call a pilot program.
“I’ve always seen girls in the sport, but they’ve always been at a disadvantage,” said Panthers coach Joey Wood, who wrestled for Kinnick in the mid-2000s. “It’s good to see the sport moving in the right direction.”
That direction includes DODEA-Europe, which began a full-fledged girls season this winter.
Girls wrestling is the fastest-growing sport in the States, with the number of states up to 45, according to TheMat.com.
And it’s not just the two DODEA schools on Okinawa that have girls teams; Kinnick debuted its girls team in a dual meet in December at Seisen and also sent a team to the 10th Rumble on the Rock tournament last month at Kadena.
There won’t be a girls division at Far East this season; as far as the 2025-26 school year, “it depends,” said DODEA-Pacific athletics coordinator Tom McKinney.
Kubasaki quarterback Carlos Cadet shrugs off the tackle of ASIJ’s Michael Piscopo. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
1. Dragons become first unbeaten D-I football team in 12 years
Graduation and transfers stole most of Kubasaki’s size and skills-positions stars, leaving the Dragons football team in what most observers called a hefty rebuilding task.
Yet what ended up happening was something that had not occurred in 12 years.
Led by what was called the “three-headed Dragon” of senior backs Carlos Cadet, Lukas Gaines and Haustyn Lunsford, Kubasaki went 7-0, won its first Far East Division I title in 11 seasons and became the first D-I team to finish a season unbeaten since Yokota in 2012.
Two key factors boosted the Dragons to their championship.
Cadet was tasked with filling the shoes vacated by Kubasaki’s starting quarterback in 2023, Trajon Weaver, who transferred to California. It wasn’t easy, but Cadet said he did what had to be done.
“There was a lot of pressure, a vast amount,” he said. “Day in and day out, training hard to play a new position.”
He was more than up to the task, accounting for nearly 1,500 yards and 22 touchdowns for a Dragons team that led DODEA-Pacific in scoring offense at 27 points per game.
But Kubasaki also sported DODEA-Pacific’s best scoring defense, 7.1 points allowed per game, and scored shutouts in its last four games.
“They told me all week long, defense wins championships,” coach Tony Alvarado said of the Dragons’ 13-0 shutout of Kadena in the D-I final, in which they allowed 77 yards of offense and forced two turnovers. “‘Watch what we do,’ they said. And they did.”
