Hawai’i Prep Girls Repeat as BIIF track & field champions

Girls 100 meter hurdles

KEAAU – The Hawaii Preparatory girls went out of the blocks quickly to claim the team title while the boy’s title was up for grabs going into the final event of the Big Island Interscholastic Federation track and field championships held Saturday in Pai’ea Stadium.

Leading things off for the Ka Makani wahine was the ‘Queen of the Hurdles’ Lana Queen who started things off by winning the 100 meter hurdles.

“My hurdle coach, Lisa Wood, helped me to peak at the right time,” Queen said.  “She’s a really good coach who works us to our fullest potential.”

(HPA’s Queen later returned to the track to add an additional 8 points to the Ka Makani team total by taking second in the 300 hurdles to Konawaena’s Ua Ruedy.)

At the same time that Queen was winning the hurdle event HPA teammate, Pamela Lynn, was adding to the Ka Makani team total by winning the high jump.

“This was my personal best as I had never cleared 5-02 during a meet,” Lynn said. 

Pamela Lynn

Lynn was just coming off an ankle and knee injury and was rested prior to coming into the championships.

“I made mechanical changes to my high jump approach as I had been running too close to the bar,” Lynn said of her personal best jump.

After winning the high jump at 5-02 Lynn asked officials to raise the bar to 5-04.5 and took three unsuccessful attempts.

“This is my senior year and I wanted to take a stab at trying to set the new school record, after all it’s just a bar,” Lynn said.

Lynn also added a few more points to her team’s totals by finishing fourth in the long jump, but it was the middle and long distance runners that put the team championship away for the Ka Makani.

   

HPA’s Zoe Sims was dominate in the 800 and 1500 meter runs taking top honors in both to close the door on second place Konawaena.

The Wildcats made a run at the team title on the backs of super star basketball athlete Lia Galdeira and teammate Ua Ruedy.

Galdeira won the long jump and in the process established herself as the number one leaper in the state in that event by going 18-03.25.

After breaking 17 feet two weeks ago Galdeira made the bold statement that she was then shooting to eclipse 18 feet by the end of the season and the top basketball player in the state lived up to her great leaping ability.

In a battle of the freshmen it was Hilo’s Carmen Garson-Shumway taking the lead in the 800 meter run with HPA’s Kristiana Van Pernis hanging a stride behind for the initial 600 meters.

Van Pernis made her move coming into the final turn before passing fellow 9^th grader, Garson-Shumway, as both hit the finish in an incredible time of 2:23.

HPA put the icing on the cake on the final event of the day, winning the 4×400 girls relay, setting a new stadium record. 

  “Everything fell into place for us and I’m real happy for the girls,” HPA coach Pat Lau said.  “Kona put on a really good fight and they did a great job.”

The BIIF top athletes will now head to Maui for the Hawaii High School state championships on May 5 and 6.

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Waiakea Boys Win First track & field team title since 1997

Grant Uekawa, Colton Austria, Keoni Rice & Stephen McAuliffe

Congratulations to the Waiakea boys track & field team for winning their first Big Island Interscholastic Federation team title since 1997.

Coaches Lance and Mary Jane Tominaga, both former Waiakea students and athletes, brought their team along well and peaked them at the right time.

 The race for the boy’s team title changed hands all afternoon and with the final two events only 4 points separated Keaau from Waiakea with defending team champion Kamehameha trailing by 19.

The big scorers for the Cougars came from Jesse Huihui and teammate Alex Engdahl.

Huihui finished second in the 100 and third in the 200 while Engdahl took fourth in the 100 and 200 and captured second in the 300 hurdles.

“I just didn’t come ready today,” Huihui said.  “I thought I could have won the 100 and 200, but I wasn’t well prepared.”

Alex Engdahl

Huihui had missed two weeks prior to the championships with a strained knee and was unhappy with his overall performance and needed to drop out of the 4×400 relay.

Five points separated Waiakea from Keaau going into the final event as the Warriors needed to finish in third place to capture the team title.

 “Hopefully I can help my team in the relay,” Engdahl said prior to the event.  “Our coach asked a lot from us and I’m getting nervous, but I’ll give it the best that I can.”

Waiakea needed a third place relay finish on the final event to capture the team title and the Warriors finished in second to edge out the Cougars by seven points.

“Our coach told us we needed to finish in second to have a chance at winning the team title,” lead relay runner Grant Uekawa said.  “I had to get our team out as far as I could to have a chance.”

Waiakea’s anchor, Stephen McAuliffe, took the baton on the final leg in a cluster of runners and knew what he had to do to secure the team victory – the first for Waiakea since the mid 90’s.