LIHU‘E — When the first gun goes off Thursday, the Rotary District Track Meet will be celebrating 75 years of being involved in track and field events on Kaua‘i.
“They recruited me to be the starter this year,” said Dave Walker, a member of the Rotary Club of West Kaua‘i. “I’ve done starter duty for the last three years, and before that I was a coach for all those years. We’re going to have Dick Ueoka, the founder of the recent Golf Hall of Fame, as our event grand marshal.”
The meet will start at 4:30 p.m. at Vidinha Stadium and follow the same protocol as the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation track and field meets.
For the last Thursday meet, the Island School Voyagers took the girls’ competition with 196.50 points. The Kapa‘a High girls followed with 104.50 points. The Kaua‘i High girls finished third with 80 points, and Waimea High School girls rounded out the scoreboard with 55 points.
The Waimea High boys topped the competition with 125 points, less than eight points over Kaua‘i High School boys, who finished with 117.33 points. Kapa‘a’s boys followed 10 points back at 107.33 points, and Island School rounded out the leaderboard at 105.33 points, just two points back of Waimea.
Some of the highlights included the hurdles, where Kapa‘a’s Kassy Eli edged out last week’s winner, Kanoe Haneberg, on a 19.14-second run in the girls 100-meter hurdles, relegating Haneberg to second place by 0.53 second.
During last week’s races, Kapa‘a’s Kala Velasco appeared to lose steam on the top end and settled for second place to Waimea’s Joey Sams. At the Thursday meet, Velasco turned the tables and powered through the boys 110-meter hurdles on a 17.68-second run, nearly two seconds ahead of Joey Sams. Velasco went on to take the 300 hurdles on a 46.67, 0.20 seconds faster than Waimea’s Jaiden Sams (46.87).
Island School dominated the 100 dash events as Ella Offley topped the 15-runner girls field on a 13.32 run, and Cody Manibog showed strong on the boys sprint with an 11.77 second run, a strong 0.21 second better than Waimea’s Jaiden Sams. Oflfley went on to take the girls 200 dash on a 28.10 second run, and the girls long jump on a leap of 15 feet.
Kaua‘i High’s Emma Burgess topped the girls distance runs, setting the pace with her first finish in the 1,500 Run on a time of 5 minutes, 15.32 seconds, more than 14 seconds ahead of second finisher Kamaira Silva of Kaua‘i High (5:29.97). Burgess and Silva went on to finish 1, 2 in the 3,000 run, Burgess setting the pace at 11:48.67, followed by Silva at 12:41.68.
Kaua‘i’s Brennen Corregedore, winner of the boys 1,500 run the previous week, was absent for the running of last week’s meet. He showed up for the boys 3,000 run, where he finished first on a 10:20.04 run over Island School’s Ryan Stevens, the winner of the 1,500 run, who stopped the clocks at 10:50.18.
More track and field excitement continues at the Rotary Kaua‘i District Meet, Thursday at Vidinha Stadium.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
