PUHI — The Kapa‘a High School boys and the Kaua‘i High School girls won the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation Cross Country Championships, Saturday at the Island School course. But the first finishers in both the boys and the girls races were
PUHI — The Kapa‘a High School boys and the Kaua‘i High School girls won the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation Cross Country Championships, Saturday at the Island School course.
But the first finishers in both the boys and the girls races were not from the winning schools.
Pierce Murphy, running for Island School, continued his domination of the boys field with a first overall finish at 16:23.20, bettering his time from the last race in preparation for the state race and finishing a full two minutes ahead of the second overall finish by Kapa‘a’s Riley Cox (18:23.90) and Brycen Phillips (18:34.70), finishing third overall.
That 2-3 finish by the Warriors gave the Kapa‘a boys team the lead that was not challenged as the first four of its five scoring runners finished in the top 10.
The Kapa‘a boys wrapped up the title with 33 points to Kaua‘i’s 55 points. Island School finished third at 63 points followed by Waimea with 72 points.
Kaua‘i High School girls, led by Cinzia Bruno (22:41.00, third overall) and Kendall Andersland (22:41.30, fourth overall), were tied with Kapa‘a until the third runner when Christina Pearson, returning from an ailment at the last race, pulled Kaua‘i ahead with her sixth overall finish (23:15.20) to Kapa‘a’s Emma Rausch finishing 15th overall for Kapa‘a at 24:54.90.
Kaua‘i placed all five of its scoring runners in the top 10 finishers while Waimea, following the first finish of Natasha Abadilla (21:25.50), interrupted the field between Kapa‘a’s fifth overall and 15th overall runners by filling the 10th through 14th places.
“I knew I had to do it,” said Abadilla following her win following a bumpy KIF season where final barriers and health problems got in the way of her wins. “I knew I could do it, I just had to make the move. We were in the canefields and I figured it was now, or never.”
Coming out of the canefields, the crowd was surprised when Abadilla had made her move to usurp the lead off the line by Kaua‘i’s Bruno and Andersland.
“This is a good way to end the season,” said Danny Abadilla, Natasha’s father. “She put everything on the line, even cutting her hair and donating it to Locks of Love before the race.”
Natasha said she had to win the race because she wanted to make her coaches proud because they all knew she could do it.
Jayme Jacinto, heading to the KIF girls volleyball matches immediately following the race, was the swing factor for the Menehune, crossing 10th overall on a 23:43.30 run and pulling Waimea ahead of Kapa‘a. Jacinto was followed by Elisa Broyles (23:57.10), Mariebeth Watanabe (24:08.70), Jayme Knapp (24:38.30) and Charlene Miguel (24:39.50) before Rausch’s crossing.
Kaua‘i commanded the girls scoring with 29 points followed by Waimea’s 42 points and Kapa‘a ending with 59 points.
That finish gives Kaua‘i five of the nine available berths for the state race that will run Oct. 31 at Island School. Although no official announcement was made on the remaining four spots, Waimea and Kapa‘a appear to have two runners apiece competing.
Kapa‘a’s Takara Kunioka topped the Warrior wahine on a second overall finish (22:22.00) followed by Tiare Welborn (23:11.40, 5th overall), Rausch, Kehaulani Relacion (25:18.60, 19th overall) and Alia Weiss (25:19.70, 20th overall).
Following Cox and Phillips, Kapa‘a’s win came with Micah Domingcil (19:16.80), Maximilian Drobba (19:29.50) and Bradley Heiser (19:57.20).
Kaua‘i’s leaders included Joshua Herr (18:58.90, 4th overall), Jason Chun (19:33.10, 10th overall), Mason Vegas (19:46.20, 11th overall), D. Herr (19:53.40, 12th overall) and Kyle Napoleon (20:51.50, 18th overall).
Jonathan Tangalin, coming from a KIF football game, Friday night, topped the Waimea runners at sixth overall (19:26.30) followed by Keone Mattos (19:27.20, 7th overall), Bryson Tacata (20:46.30, 17th overall), Joshua Quinlan (20:56.20, 20th) and Amlan Fujimura (21:38.10, 29th).
Following Murphy for Island School, Jeremy Randolph-Flag stopped the clock at 19:28.20, eighth overall, followed by Ryan Perez (19:56.20, 13th), Sam Dunham (21:00.90, 22nd) and Dylan Morrison-Fogel (21:09.60, 24th).
The Honolulu Marathon Cross County State Championships presented by the Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association will be hosted by Island School starting at 9 a.m., Oct. 31.
“This should be a good race,” said Dr. Shawn Murphy, Pierce’s father, following the KIF championships. “Pierce is not used to having people ahead of him, and the state race will have 160 people vying for the lead.”
Coming off a pre-season race where Pierce was bested by Margarito Martinez of Leilehua High School, Shawn said Pierce will be heading to the Mount San Antonio Collegiate cross country races this week.
“This is the biggest cross country race in the world with starting taking place every eight minutes,” Shawn said. “I used to run in it in high school, and now Pierce is going to be running in it.”
Shawn said Pierce will be running in the Division I Varsity class of this race to gain some experience running with a lot of competition.
“Pierce may not show too much expression when he runs,” Shawn said. “But he knows that when the state race happens he’ll be running for Kaua‘i and he’s real proud of that.”
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@kauaipubco.com
