WAIMEA — Kaua‘i High School girls runner Emma Burgess missed the 17-minute race by just four ticks on Saturday during the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation cross country races held at the rapidly-warming Waimea High School campus.
But the overall run of 18 minutes, 56.24 seconds was good enough to lead the 18-runner pack to a Kaua‘i High School girls victory when the junior first girls finisher was joined by No. 2 finisher Kamaira Silva stopping the clocks at 21:38.91, more than three minutes back of Burgess, to lay claim to the top team score of 30 points.
Kamaira’s mother said her goal was to just stay close to Emma after not being able to finish the race during her first appearance.
The Kapa‘a High School girls that last week, forced a tie-breaker for the lead, was missing a runner and slipped to second place on 41 points after being led by Meah Jensen who crossed third overall on a 22:33.49 after laying back in the first half of the 5k course and turning on the jets in the second half. The Warriors’ Jessica Drent, finishing less than 30 seconds back of Jensen, crossed fourth overall, and despite Sage Hofmann stopping the clocks fifth overall at 23:16.90, Kapa‘a could not overcome the early lead set by the Kaua‘i girls.
Waimea High School, getting its first finish with Kayla Prigge crossing seventh overall on a 24:37.09 run, less than 10 seconds ahead of Hope Newton, settled in third place with 56 points.
“Where’s that Kayla smile?” chirped Joyce Evens, one of the race officials at the finish line. “Oh, I wouldn’t be smiling after running three miles. This is her first time she’s running cross country.”
On the boys’ course, Kaua‘i’s Brennen Corregedore repeated as the first overall finisher on a run that tripped the clocks at 17:21.17.
“Entering the last lap, everything felt good,” Corregedore said. “So, I just pushed it. I wanted to see how fast I could do this run.”
Less than eight seconds back, the first of the Island School boys followed when Kai Spindt crossed at 17:29.96 to start the Voyager floodgate of finishers that included Christian Carrington (17:39.61) in third overall, Ryan Stevens (18:26.29) in fifth overall, and Avinash Srikanth (18:29.80) in sixth overall.
The surge of Voyager boys pushed Island School to the top team scoring spot at 27 points over Kaua‘i High School boys who ended with 42 points. Kapa‘a High School, whose Dominic Agrade set the pace fourth overall at 18:06.31, ended with 65 points, and host Waimea High School closed the leaderboard on 89 points.
The next KIF cross country race will take place Saturday, starting at 7:30 a.m. at the Puakea Golf Course.
The Puakea Golf Course will be previewed, Friday when Run Club Kaua‘i with RCK co-founder Emma Burges hosts the first-ever 3k run for middle school students starting at 5 p.m.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
