Friday, May 15, 1998
40th Hawaii High School
Athletic Association
Track and Field Meet
By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Punahou's Bennett Valencia is the
top qualifier in the 400 meters.
Records the rage
in state trials
Six state meet marks fall
By Pat Bigold
during the opening day
Star-BulletinThe record books took a beating yesterday during the trials of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association Track and Field Meet at Kaiser High School.
Six -- and possibly seven -- state meet records were broken in one of the most intense opening days in the 40-year history of the event.
Three meet records were broken on the first day of trials last year and eight in all in the three-day event.
Trials for the boys' pole vault will be held today at 4 p.m. Finals in all events will be held tomorrow, starting with field events at 4:30 p.m.
Punahou's Eri Macdonald (800 meters) and Sara Yap (triple jump), Kaiser's Endia Abrante (400), Castle's Bryan Clay (110 high hurdles), Hawaii Preparatory Academy's Kaili Chapman (300 low hurdles) and the Punahou 4x100 relay team set meet records.
Clay also appeared to have set a record in the 100 with his electronic time of 10.67. With the electronic conversion factor, which added .24 seconds to the existing record of 10.6 set by Clayton Mahuka (Nanakuli) in 1985, he should have the record. But meet officials hadn't declared it a record as of last night.
His electronic time of 21.56 in the 200 might also have eclipsed the hand time of Casey Flores' 21.2 in 1996, but it was not converted.
Macdonald, the nation's second fastest prep 800-meter runner according to Track and Field News, came to the track with a legion of teammates and fans wearing T-shirts that said, "Eri Would Go."
The junior didn't disappoint them as she broke a 14-year-old meet record in the 800 in less than ideal conditions.
Macdonald, running far ahead of the pack and into the wind, finished in 2 minutes, 13.23 seconds. Her electronically recorded time bested the 1984 hand-timed record of 2:13.5 set by Kaiser's Nina Liajhell.
It was her fastest time on Hawaiian soil. But it was nearly three seconds slower than the time she ran in Northern California earlier this spring -- 2:10.4, which earned her a national ranking.
Nonetheless, Macdonald's father, Duncan Macdonald, a former U.S. record holder at 5,000 meters, was ecstatic over his daughter's performance.
By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Kaiser's Endia Abrante broke her
own record in the 400 meters.
"Under these conditions, that was phenomenal," he said. "It doesn't surprise me that she was capable, but it does surprise me she could do it without someone to key off of. It's a huge breakthrough for her."Runner-up Cobey Ackerman of Kamehameha was nearly 12 seconds back.
"She made up her mind to let it all hang out and not worry about how she felt," said her father. "I think she just mentally projected for the record."
She completed 400 meters at 64.9 -- a tenth of a second faster than she and her father had planned.
"But she went out in 29.3 for the first 200, which I thought was a little too fast for comfort," Duncan Macdonald said. "She went through 600 in 1:39 and that was faster than she ran when she did 2:10 in California."
Abrante, meanwhile, broke her own 1997 record of 56.11 in the 400 with a time of 56.01. Last week, she set the OIA record in the 400 at 56.10.
Clay smashed Jason Brennerman's (Pearl City) 1981 hand-timed record of 14.4 with a 14.14 in the 110 high hurdles.
"My form was off -- I hit my ankle on the hurdles," said Clay, who set the OIA record in the event last weekend.
Yap broke Kerry Ting's 1990 triple jump record of 37-6.25 with a 37-8.75 effort.
Kaili Chapman bounded through the 300 low hurdles in 45.69, besting the 1987 hand time of 46.0 by Punahou's Amy Hallett.
Boys' state 400 record holder Bennett Valencia of Punahou topped qualifiers in the event with a time of 49.17.
NOTES: This is the third year that photo-timing equipment has been used at a state meet.
Three years ago on Maui, the equipment was used to decide close finishes. But for the past two years, photo timers licensed to the OIA and the Honolulu Marathon Association have been used to record every running event.
Electronic timing is used for two reasons:
It is the national standard, and the only acceptable timing method for national record keeping.
