Kamehameha's Alo wins gold at international wrestling tourney


Teshya Alo, a two-time girls' state wrestling champion and a soon-to-be junior at Kamehameha, struck gold on the other side of the world Thursday.

Alo won all five of her matches to finish atop the women's freestyle 123.25-pound division at the FILA Cadet World Championships in Snina, Slovakia. She defeated Ksenia Nezgovorova of Russia in the final by a score of 9-2.

"We are all proud and very excited for our world champion, Teshya Alo. She showed a lot of heart and determination," U.S. coach Erin Tomeo said in a USA wrestling story. "We hope that the girls competing tomorrow can use that as inspiration and to their advantage, in which they'll go hard out of the gate and get the job done."

Alo, who improved upon a third-place finish at the same tournament last year, was the lone American to medal Thursday. She narrowly edged Tatjana Rizhko of Ukraine, 9-8, in the quarterfinal round and got by with a 4-3 win over Japan's Kumi Irie in the semifinal round. 

Alo is believed to be the first wrestler from Hawaii to win a Cadet world championship.

In her first two years of prep wrestling, Alo won back-to-back individual state titles at 130 pounds and helped the Warriors claim their first state crown last season.