LIHUE — Dave Walker, a member of the Rotary Club of West Kauai, and retired as a track and field coach from Waimea High School, said when the first Rotary Track Meet was held, the crowds were huge.
“This is the longest running Rotary event,” Walker said. “We started in 1946 in Kekaha (at the site now-named the Faye Park). There was no television, back then. Everyone came, and the crowds were huge. The meet lasted the whole day and everyone was red at the end.”
Walker was busy installing freshly redone marking stripes along the jump pit Thursday when the Westside Rotary Club hosted its annual Rotary Track and Field Meet and Qualifying Meet at Vidinha Stadium.
Dan Ahuna, sporting the green Kapaa High School coaching shirt for the first time this Kauai Interscholastic Federation season, was joined by the return of another familiar coaching face — Calvin Paleka.
“It’s really good to have events like this,” Ahuna said. “We’ve been fighting to get the stripes of the jump pit redone for a long time. I went around and hugged each Rotarian I ran into — this is so good. Up until the last meet, we used chalk to try and fill in the marks.”
Walker said the Rotary Club worked with the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation to install new lumber and repaint the striping which was put to use.
The improvement may have been a help to Waimea High School senior William Kamaka who picked up one of the state qualifying marks in the Boys Long Jump based on the revised April 3 standards, leaping to a final 20 feet, 9 inches.
Previously, Kapaa’s Zion Williams had made the state mark, but on Thursday settled for second place at 19-08, not a state mark. Williams also made the mark in the boys triple jump during a previous meet, but fell short of the revised state marks during the Rotary outing.
Two combatants for supremacy in the Girls 100 Meter Hurdles — Brianna Binder of Kapaa, and Monique Joy Lorenzo of Waimea — took advantage of the field of Rotarian volunteers and its ensuing excitement to break the 17-second mark in their weekly race.
Binder took the top spot during the Rotary meet at 16.94 followed a blink later by Lorenzo who also made the new state mark at 16.95.
KIF athletes finished the night with 10 qualifying events based on the revised time standards.
Kauai High School picked up its share of state marks as well, starting with the Girls 4×100 relay team of Lindsey Nakea-Tresler, Mia Takekuma, Torrie Hasegawa, and Waileia Edwards taking the baton across the line at 52.42 seconds for top honors, and a state time standard.
The second place team in the event — Kapaa High School with Taelyn Nunes, Binder, Jaliyah Casem, and Talia Washington — crossed the line in second at 53.19, a mere .05 second shy of the 53.14 qualifying mark.
Casem, like Binder, made her mark in the Girls High Jump where she finished first at the qualifying 4-10.00 leap over the efforts of Kauai’s Maria Gojkovic who fell short of the 4-08 mark.
Kauai’s Taegan Keep, the state defending champion in Girls Discus, rounded out the girls’ state standards by continuing to improve in the shot put where she made the state mark on a 33.04.75 placement, and the discus where she fell short of 130 feet, but still qualified after a toss of 127.02.
On the boys’ arena, the men made their mark on the track where Kapaa’s Garret Smith and Island School’s Joshua Graves gave spectators their money’s worth on the 800 meter track when Smith tripped the clocks at 2:02.83 for first, a blink ahead of Graves (2:02.84). Both runners advance to the state meet after surpassing the qualifying standard of 2:05.44.
Kauai’s Mark Tabalbag rounded out the qualifiers by hitting the state mark of 5-10 in the Boys High Jump.
Faced with the newly-released state marks, KIF athletes continue their quest for state times, Thursday during the qualifying meet No. 5 at Vidinha Stadium starting at 4:30 p.m. The KIF trials and championships are scheduled for April 26 and 27 at Vidinha Stadium, starting at 4 p.m. on both days.
There is no admission for the qualifying, or trials. However, there will be admission for the KIF championships, April 27.
