LIHUE — In the shadow of excitement of homecomings from the Hawaii High School Athletic Association state championships, a group of athletes from Kapaa and Kauai high schools slipped through the baggage claim gates with little fanfare on Sunday.
Kanoe Haneberg, a senior at Kapaa High School, earned a gold medal in Girls High Jump at the 2025 Island Movers HHSAA Track and Field State Championships that wrapped up on Saturday at Kealakehe High School.
Additionally, according to results posted on Athletic.net, Waimea High School took gold in the Mixed 4×100 Relay Unified, and second in the Mixed 4×400 Relay Unified.
Kauai High School junior Aileah Villatora, a standout in cross country and soccer, found gold in the 400 Meter dash with a time that stopped the clocks at 57.67, and finished seventh in the 200 Meter run with a 26.43 second run.
“These athletes — the medal winners, and non medalists — are superb,” said Kauai High School coach Chelsea Wishard, herself a two-time state champion in the 1,500 for the years 2006 and 2007.
Track season exposed athletes to improvised track courses, either on cinder or grass, and sent athletes scrambling throughout the season in search of track meets off-island in order to qualify for the state meet.
And Kauai High School lost their head coach early in the season, leaving Wishard to steer the program with the help of Board of Education Kauai Representative William “Coach Bill” Arakaki turning out at the Kauai Interscholastic Federation meets to assist Wishard and the KIF staff who had to improvise track course layouts because Vidinha Stadium, the home of the rubberized track, was closed.
Additionally, the Central Pacific Bank KIF Championships went head-to-head with the annual Visitor Industry Charity Walk that pulled a crowd of nearly a thousand walker to raise funds benefiting approximately 60 nonprofit groups.
Haneberg not only won the CPB KIF Championship in Girls High Jump with a leap of 5 feet, 3 inches, she broke a KIF record set in that event by Jamilee Jiminez in 2007.
“I was very surprised to learn my jump at states,” Haneberg said. “My jump during the preliminaries came in at 5-5, and in the finals, on third attempt, 5-7.”
Haneberg’s gold in the High Jump joins six other medals she earned, including a fourth finish in the Girls Triple Jump at 35’6,” and a sixth finish in the Girls 100 Meter Hurdles where she stopped the clock at 16.12 seconds.
The Moanalua High School boys finished by earning the team championships along with the Konawaena High School girls.
For more information, visit the HHSAA website at www.hhsaa.org.
