Big Dog at the Red Bull Cliff Diving Championships

Thanks to Richard and Virginia Alderson both Big Dog and Mrs. Big Dog  got to attend the Red Bull World Championships of Cliff Diving held on private property just outside of Hilo.  The Red Bull Company were great host as they provided food, water and an unlimited supply of Red Bull to those fortunate enough to get a wrist band to attend.    To better view the photos simply click onto them to enlarge.

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Hilo Girls Win Kamehameha Invite

Girls start at Kam. Invitational, photo by Brad Ballesteros

KEAAU – Hilo High’s girls served noticed on the rest of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation by winning the highly competitive Kamehameha-Hawaii Invitational this past Saturday.

Led by senior Nadia Ramirez the Viking girls stood up to a talented field of harriers which included a team from Hawaii Baptist Academy on Oahu to capture the biggest team victory of their young season.

“I wasn’t sure about how we’d do in this meet today,” Viking coach, Bill McMahon said.  “We knew that Hawaii Prep was going to let their girls go in this meet, but we ran strong.”

Hilo won in team scoring with 45 points followed by HPA with 57 and HBA, who finished sixth in the state last year, with 69.

“We’re not looking at states at this point,” said a cautious McMahon.  “We need to win our own island first before I can look at the state meet.”

Dakota Grossman

Ramirez, who transferred to Hilo earlier this year from a school in California, made a name for herself at the all-schools meet on the Warrior campus by becoming the first BIIF girl to cross the finish line. 

Winning the meet was freshman Dakota Grossman from Seabury Hall on Maui.  Grossman’s older sister was an MIL champion and a state runner-up during her senior season last year.

“I didn’t expect to win today and was hoping for a top three finish,” Grossman said.  “The course was fun and not to hard or not too easy as it was mostly on grass.”

Grossman, who is already considered to be one of the top five runners in the state, went out quickly and led the entire way.  Within the first mile of the three mile race Grossman had already established a 30 second lead on her closest competitors, Ramirez and HBA’s Heidi Nicholls.

“My dad always teaches me to go out quickly so I pushed myself as hard as I could right from the beginning,” she said.  “On Maui I run alone and when my mom brought me here I was looking for something different.  I’m hoping to be in the top five in the state this year”

Grossman’s winning time of 19 minutes 15 seconds was nearly one minute ahead of Ramirez, 20:08, and HBA’s Nicholls, 20:16.  Three time defending BIIF champion, Honokaa’s Tialana Greenwell, was fourth in 20:34.

It was only the second time in Greenwell’s illustrious cross country prep career that she had lost to a BIIF competitor.

Chris Mosch

“I don’t think about who I’m racing against and I don’t put any pressure on myself,” Ramirez said of her second place win.  “Our coach always wants us to do our best and that is exactly what I did today.  Something even better than how I did is that our team won.”

For the boys varsity competition it was the season debut of BIIF defending champion Chris Mosch from Honokaa.

Mosch had missed the first two meets of the season as he was still recovering from a stress fracture he received at the end of the track season in May. 

“It felt good to race again as it’s been a long four months of recovery,” Mosch said.  “I couldn’t wait for today to come as I had a lot of pent up excitement.”

Mosch left nothing in the tank as he went out quickly and jumped to an early lead with Rene Siqueiros of Watsonville, California in hot pursuit.

“Going into this race I had my sights on winning and I was hoping to run in the low 17 minute range,” Mosch said.

With 400 yards to go and with the finish line in sight Siqueiros began his kick and started to close on Mosch.  With 200 yards Mosch had slipped into second with Siqueiros hitting the tape at 16:43 and Mosch following two seconds later.

“I didn’t think I’d do this well, time wise, especially in this heat,” Mosch said.  “I knew I was in shape, cardio wise, as I never stopped conditioning after the injury.  I was doing pool running and biking nearly every day and I was looking forward to this day for a long time.

Dragon teammate, Joshua Robinson, also had a good day claiming fourth overall in 17:23 and helped his team to take second in scoring, just two points behind the winning Watsonville team.

“My goal today was to break into the top 10,” Robinson said.  “I took the lead with Chris (Mosch) in the early going and we were pacing off each other.  I didn’t have a strategy coming into the race as my entire focus was on my form and running my own race.”

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Mosch and Robinson went 1-2 in the all BIIF meet which places Honokaa as the team to beat once again in island competition.

“With Chris (Mosch) back our team is looking very strong,” Robinson said.  “I’m really pleased with how we did today especially in this heat and with the hard week of practice that we just put in.”

Also looking very strong was Christian Liberty Academy’s Jordan Grotenhuis who finished fifth overall and third amongst BIIF runners, edging out Hilo’s Tyde Kaneshiro and St. Joseph’s Andrew Langtry.

The BIIF will take a bye this coming Saturday and will resume with an all-schools meet on Sept. 25 on the campus of Waiakea.