KAPA‘A — Despite missing several key runners to injury and illness, the Kaua‘i High School girls cross country team was able to dig deep enough to capture its second straight win, Saturday. Kapa‘a High School boys flooded the top 10
KAPA‘A — Despite missing several key runners to injury and illness, the Kaua‘i High School girls cross country team was able to dig deep enough to capture its second straight win, Saturday.
Kapa‘a High School boys flooded the top 10 positions with five white shirts to take the boys race with 35 points over Island School, whose star Pierce Murphy crossed the line almost two and a half minutes ahead of the second place finisher.
Island School finished with 48 points for second followed by Kaua‘i High School boys with 64 points and Waimea High School with 90 points.
Kaua‘i High School girls finished with 43 points over Kapa‘a’s 51 points.
Island School filled in third place with 65 points followed by Waimea High School at 66 points, just a point behind.
Lauren Spears set the pace for the girls race, jumping into the lead early, and increasing her lead to cross at 21:17.02, just about 30 seconds ahead of Kapa‘a’s Takara Kunioka crossing at 21:47.24 and Cassie Wilson in third overall at 22:29.18.
Joy Claypoole, a strong multi-sport athlete for Island School, slipped into fourth place with a 23:01.67 run, edging Waimea’s first runner, Nordmeier San Agustin, by nine seconds (23:10.44).
Heidi Herr broke the ice for Kaua‘i in sixth place on a 23:15.89 run.
But that set the stage as four Kaua‘i redshirts followed with Cinzia Bruno (23:34.11), the third redshirt, being the pivot that pushed Kaua‘i into the lead.
Following Herr, Raisa Carlos (23:21.51), Bruno, Cascade Mayer (23:36.06) followed before Kapa‘a’s Tambrina Fairbanks rounded out the first 10 finishers at 23:37.71.
Following the first four runners, Island School and Kapa‘a were tied at five points apiece before Kapa‘a went up when Fairbanks cross at 10th overall followed by Island School’s Chan Hsu (24:19.15) crossing 11th overall.
Island School set the pace for the boys race as Pierce Murphy lit up the three-mile course on a 15:35.40 for the second time in as manyweeks.
But with the second runner behind by more than two minutes, excitement stirred as Kaua‘i’s Joshua Herr held off a strong sprint finish by team mate Mason Vegas for the second and third overall finish, Herr stopping the clock at 17:57.30 and Vegas just .10 second back at 17:57.40.
Kapa‘a’s first finisher was Brycen Phillips, stopping the clock at 18:40.50 for fourth overall.
Ryan Perez, coming off a complete full marathon run at the second Kaua‘i Marathon last week, filled in fifth for Island School on an 18:54.50.
What followed was a sea of white shirts as Micah Domingcil (19:07.50), Joshua Cram (19:24.80) and Gabe Ball (19:28.60) filled in the sixth through eighth positions, effectively locking up the race.
Jeremy Randolph-Flagg of Island School filled in the ninth position at 19:29.90 followed by Matt Domingcil (19:59.20) filling in the 10th overall spot, and Mas Owen sealing the deal for Kapa‘a, finishing 20:02.40 for 11th overall.
The fourth Island School finisher, Dylan Morrison-Fogel (20:44.20) crossed 18th overall, and the third Kaua‘ finisher, Travis Navarro (21:09.90) crossed 25th overall.
Shosho Ogawa (20:35.70) was the first finisher for Waimea, crossing 14th overall, followed by Donovan Lumabao (21:08.20) finishing 24th overall.
The Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation cross country race moves to Waimea High School this Saturday with the course pretty much established by the earlier Waimea Invitational two weeks ago.
Start time is 8 a.m. for the girls race followed by the boys race.
