For two years in a row as prep softball standouts, Chris Hipa and Cydney Curran faced each other at the HHSAA state tournament. Curran’s Campbell squad got the best of Hipa’s Kamehameha teams both times.
The Sabers beat the top-seeded Warriors 5-0 in the quarterfinals in 2014. In 2015, Campbell won 7-1 in the semifinals, in a run that included the first of three consecutive HHSAA crowns.
Hipa and Curran still exchange barbs about which school is better to this day, even as upperclassmen at Cal State Bakersfield. But as the only Hawaii natives on the Roadrunners roster, the two have also learned to lean on each other over their collegiate careers.
“Her being from Kamehameha and me being from Campbell, we never faced each other until the state playoffs. I still tease her about it or we go at it saying things like ‘Campbell’s better’ or ‘Kamehameha’s better,’ so it’s pretty funny,” Curran said. “It’s fun competition, but at the end of the day, she’s my teammate now and I think that’s really cool. Without her, I think my freshman year would’ve been a much tougher transition.
“Her being from Hawaii as well is really cool. It’s like having another sister from the islands to do stuff together with and have each other’s backs.”
Curran has the edge in high school state titles, but she’s never been to the postseason in college like Hipa has. The Roadrunners last appeared in an NCAA regional in 2016, back when Hipa was a freshman at CSUB and Curran still a senior at Campbell. Although the team bowed out with losses to UCLA and Fresno State, Hipa still remembers it vividly and is itching to experience postseason play again.
“I am very hungry to get back there because it’s my senior year,” she said. “I think it was a surreal experience because we won the important games to win the WAC. Being at a bigger stage in regionals at UCLA’s stadium with teams that everybody knows and everybody loves, you can feel the energy once you step on.”
Curran clearly wants it, too.
The Roadrunners are 10-13 but won their first WAC series against California Baptist to open conference play at 2-1. Their postseason chances likely hinge on the WAC tournament May 8-11 in Phoenix.
“I would love to experience it. I love the competition and I love the fight. I love winning. I really want to share that moment with my teammates and eventually make it to the regionals,” Curran said. “But it comes with a lot of hard work and fight and I feel like we have that in our team this year and I know we can push hard to win. I really want to experience it.”
Hipa garnered second-team All-WAC honors as a freshman and was first-team as a sophomore. She split time at second and third base, and has also made 18 appearances as a pitcher over her college career. Pitching is more of a “once in a while type of thing” for her senior season, as she’s only been in the circle three times. At the plate, she’s hit three of the team’s four home runs this season.
On Nov. 18, Hipa also competed at the World Association of Benchers and Deadlifters Championships in Las Vegas. Her deadlift of 391 pounds was a junior world record for the 198 weight class. Although she sees the correlation between lifting and softball, she also likes to separate the two.
“Softball is a release from school, but lifting is a release from softball and school,” she said. “It’s an individual sport and a different experience because you don’t have to beat people, you have to beat numbers. That’s just a new challenge that I really, really enjoy.”
After hitting .198 as a freshman and .204 as a sophomore, Curran now leads the team with a .313 batting average as a junior.
“I think this year, I worked on just keeping it simple and having a ton of confidence in myself,” she said. “In previous years I wasn’t as confident, and this year I worked on just seeing the ball at the plate and not changing my swing or anything, just trusting what I’ve been working on and just doing my thing out on the field.”
That laid-back approach has been Curran’s key to success on the field, and it’s rubbed off on Hipa.
“I think it’s great because we are very similar yet very different,” Hipa said. “We have our own energy when we play. We’re not super rowdy and we’re not super out there, we’re just kind of calm and that helps me stay true to who I am and we can bounce that off of each other.
“It helps me just to reflect on when we used to play each other at home, reminders of ‘Hey, you can do this.’ I feel like just having her presence here helps me a lot to connect back home and stay being true to who I am. She’s like a good reminder of that.”
