The largest and most competitive cross country meet of the year was held Saturday at Ford Island, hosted by 'Iolani School.
On Friday, 'Iolani played host to all the visiting teams from the mainland, as well as all the local teams, at the Iolani Student Center.
There was lots of food, entertainment by the Iolani dancers, and inspirational speakers including the fourth fastest 5,000 meter runner in the world, Matt Tegenkamp.
The next day at Ford Island it wasn't as hot as it might have been but it was windy and dry stirring up a lot of sand and dust. It had to be tough running into that wind. The course was mostly grass, but still pretty fast since it was about as flat as you can get.
The competition was superb.
On the boys' side at the varsity level, it was Palos Verdes winning with 49 points. Lakewood (84 points) took second. Local powerhouse, Leilehua, took 3rd place with Bryce Jenkins taking 3rd overall. Matt Duffy from St. Mary's took 1st place with an excellent time of 15:58. There were 3 local boys in the top 10. Joining Bryce was Matt Nakamoto (5th - HBA), and Paul Williams (9th - Leilehua). Top 20 finishes were turned in by Dawson Vorderbruegge (Kaiser), Nathan Nakatsuka (Kamehameha), and Scott Motobu (Mid-Pacific).
The girls varsity was dominated by Redlands, who placed their top 5 at 1, 2, 8, 10 and 12 for a total of 33 points. Local school, Maryknoll, was able to place second, a fabulous showing, with Haley Abing finishing at 5th overall. St. Mary's (CA) took 3rd. Iolani was the next local school to place at 5th.
The top local girl was Kristin Ali Keith (Mililani - 19:45), followed by Haley (5th - Maryknoll), Maile Scarpino (7th-Iolani), Jenna Wong (9th-Iolani), Claire Hann (11th-Maryknoll), Amelia Linsky (14th - Iolani), Dayna Domingo (16th-Pearl City) and Savannah Lowrie (18th-Leilehua).
The JV boys race had the second most dominant finish of all when Palos Verdes finished 1, 2, 3, 4 and 11 for 21 points. Almost a perfect score! Henry M. Gunn was second with 49, and local team Kamehameha was 3rd with 74.
Individually, Palos Verdes had the first 4 places when Daniel Meyer, Anthony Woods, Johnny Funnell and Chase Zukerman all finished in a pack. Henry M. Gunn had the next 3 places. Borys Pleskacz (Iolani) was the first local finisher at 8th place with a time of 18:08. Other local top 20 finishers included Donzel Scott (Leilehua), Dan Kaneko (Kamehameha), Matthew Dodge (Campbell), Joey Chun (Kamehameha), Grant Kaima (Kamehameha), Greg Sikes-Mitchell (Radford), Kawai Akiona (Kamehameha), and Robert Tamai (Iolani).
The two mile girls open race was won by Punahou School. Punahou had the most dominant victory placing 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. For good measure they also placed 7 and 9. Local teams also took second through fifth, St. Andrew's Priory, Radford, Iolani, and Maryknoll.
Megan Crowley of Redlands won this race with a superb time of 14:01. But, Redlands didn't have a scoring team so Amanda Tamanaha of St. Andrew's actually claimed the number 1 spot for scoring purposes. Then it was 4 Punahou girls, Megan Steele, Sarah Hayashi, Brooke Laporte, and Lahaina Zoller. Other top 20 finishers were Courtney Choy (Punahou), Chelsea Chan (HBA), Carli Look (Punahou), Heidi Nicholls (HBA), Gina Galante (St. Andrew's), Lauren Wong (Punahou), Jayann Gabrio (Punahou), Brie Adams (Maryknoll) and Nicole Valentini (St. Andrew's).
The Iolani boys won the intermediate division in a close battle with Rivera Middle School, 52-54. Kamehameha and Mililani weren't too far behind, finishing 3rd and 4th.
Local athletes took 15 out of the top 20 spots in the intermediate boys race. All 5 of the spots they didn't get were taken by Rivera, taking 1, 6, 14, 15 and 18. Iolani took 2, 3, 11, 12 and 24 to squeak out the win.
The overall winner was Chris Alvarez of Rivera, with a time of 12:01. Top 20 local finishers were Kasey Chun and Justin Higa (Iolani), Kelvin Naito (Punahou), Collin Pido (Kamehameha), Zachary Carvalho (Mililani), Ashton Maynes (Moanalua), Joshua Freitas (Kamehameha), Jon Kim (HBA), Michael Diebold and Troy Esaki (Iolani), Andrew Momohara (Mililani), Shaun Bissen (Kamehameha), Harrison Oshiro (Punahou), Brad-George Gaison (Kamehameha) and Trenton Dos-Santos Tam (Punahou).
I'm going to refrain from writing about the girls intermediate race for now. There may be some changes coming on that front. Stay tuned...
