Tressie Ostermiller has made paddling part of her yearly routine since first participating regularly in the sport as a fourth-grader.

Now a senior at Kamehameha, the team leader can’t imagine going another year without spending the spring, summer — or both — on the water in a canoe. While she has sights set on pursuing a college degree in physical therapy, sports science or athletic training, Ostermiller hopes her academic pursuits take place near the ocean.

"I don’t know if I can survive in the mainland without the ocean," she says.

Ostermiller carries the rare distinction of being a four-year varsity competitor, and is regarded as one of coach Kehau Meyer’s go-to paddlers since the skipper took the reigns of the program four seasons ago. Ostermiller is slated as the stroker — the paddler occupying the first seat in a canoe responsible for setting and maintaining the stroke pace — for Kamehameha’s top-seeded girls crew that enters Saturday’s First Hawaiian Bank/HHSAA Canoe Paddling Championships looking for a seventh state crown in what will be the 13th running of the state race. The Warriors have finished second the past two seasons.

The Warriors won four of six ILH regular-season races and netted the league title, an accomplishment Ostermiller calls "an important first step" toward bringing the state championship trophy back to Kapalama Heights.

THE VETERAN CREW spent the regular season participating in long-distance races spanning 3 to nearly 6 miles, and has worked tirelessly to re-tune its technique to fit the state race’s half-mile sprint format in Keehi Lagoon’s calm waters.

"It’s hard to transition from a 6-mile race, and cut it down to a 4-minute race," Ostermiller says. "You get two weeks to find that perfect blend for a half-mile instead of 6 miles. Right now, we’re working on perfecting our catch-and-release, making sure everyone enters and exits the water at the same time."

Ostermiller singles out Seabury Hall as one of the many teams she and crewmates are wary of, and for good reason. Ostermiller used to paddle with Maui’s Hawaiian Canoe Club, one of the state’s perennial powers every year during the summer sprint season and fall long-distance campaign. Some of her paddling mates from years ago still paddle for Hawaiian, and also made a statement for Seabury Hall last year by denying Kamehameha via a 2-second margin of victory much the same way Pac-Five edged the Warriors by 0.5 seconds at the 2012 state final.

"We train in a silo; there’s nothing we can do about anybody else but ourselves," Meyer says when asked about the proposition of facing talented crews such as Punahou, defending state champion Seabury Hall of the Maui Interscholastic League and current OIA champion Anuenue.

"From my own personal experience and from years past, I have my own formula. I teach the girls that formula, and if they meet me half way, and perform with laser-beam focus that I expect of them, there’s no doubt that they’re going to peak at the right time."

OSTERMILLER realizes the importance of helping Kamehameha’s girls program reclaim the state’s top spot. The senior paddler recalls Meyer telling the crew about her own experience paddling for longtime Kamehameha coach "Auntie" Rosie Lum, and the rich history involved with the program that is realized and passed on by each incoming and graduating class.

"Since there are eight of us seniors on the varsity (competing for a seat in the canoe), I feel like the fire really burns in us," Ostermiller says. "It’s really a team effort, and if we all push, I think we can do it. We’re concentrated on our boat and not worrying about what other crews are doing. We practice every single half-mile sprint as if it’s the state race."

Meyer echoes the sentiment of her pupil and makes the important point that she controls the level of discipline in her crew. The skipper doesn’t want to spend time worrying about what competing crews are doing until all the canoes hit the water together.

"Every year is special, and over the last four years, we’ve faced some really stiff competition," Meyer says. "As long as they’re realizing their personal best, that’s what I strive for. That’s how I was coached, with an old-school approach. If you grind and put in the work, you get out what you put in. If you train like a champion, you’ll be a champion."

REGARDLESS of which school emerges victorious on Saturday, the consensus among the favorites is that the roughly 4-minute sprint will define an entire season’s worth of hard work and dedication.

"We’ve been training for states for a while with sprints and what not, but (competing in half-mile sprints) definitely levels the playing field," says Nicole Fong, steerswoman for Punahou’s girls’ crew that finished a close second to Kamehameha in the ILH campaign. "It will be interesting to see. It’ll be a battle to the finish line."