9th Annual Iolani Cross Country Invitational Run At Ford Island – Sept. 22, 2007

Alan Linsky www.coach-photos.com for Digital Sports Hawaii

	It wasn’t as hot as it could have been. But, it was very windy and dry, which meant there was a lot of sand and dust blowing around. Very 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. With many teams from the mainland and the OIA joining the ILH, the Iolani Invitational is one of the largest, if not the largest local meet of the year, usually with the toughest competition.

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
2 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…