HPU puts 4 in cross
country nationals

The Hawaii Pacific cross country teams have been top-heavy all season long, and it has been enough for them to dominate local meets.

But it was a slightly different story in the regional meet at Bellingham, Wash., yesterday.

The Sea Warriors top runners stayed true to form in the meet, with Nina Christensen taking the women's title and Christian Madsen winning the men's race. Lisa Blomme and Sayuri Kusutani ran well enough to finish second and fifth and earn the right to join Christensen and Madsen at the national meet Nov. 17 at Slippery Rock, Pa.

The HPU squads finished well back in the team standings though, with the men placing ninth and the women 10th.

Brigham Young-Hawaii's women finished 15th while Chaminade's came in last at 21st. BYUH also was the second-best Hawaii team on the men's side, finishing 14th, just ahead of Hawaii-Hilo in 15th and Chaminade in 16th. California-Davis won the team titles for both races.

Madsen was challenged for the first time this year, moving through the 10 kilometer course in 32:07, just three seconds ahead of Alaska-Anchorage freshman Tobias Schwoerer.

It was the second regional win for Christensen, a sophomore from Denmark, who won it in 1999 before sitting out last year for personal reasons.

Christensen ran the six kilometer course in 21:37, 20 seconds faster than teammate Blomme, who finished second as the defending champion. Sayuri Kusutani, a 42-year old freshmen, was four seconds away from making it a 1-2-3 sweep for Hawaii Pacific. She ran the course in 22:02, one second behind fourth place finisher Jessica Nau of Calif.-Davis and four behind third place finisher Heather Gibson of the Aggies.

Iacovelli, Cuadra, Lim repeat in cross country

Todd Iacovelli of Punahou and Christal Cuadra of Pac-Five won the boys and girls races at the Interscholastic League ofHonolulu Cross Country Championships yesterday at Kamehameha.

Iacovelli won his second consecutive league crown in 16 minutes, six seconds, 35 seconds in front of Kamehameha's Justin Peterson. Cuadra (11:24) topped Iolani's Kristin Shinkawa by 34 seconds. Cuadra also won for the second time in as many years.

Iacovelli's finish wasn't enough to propel Punahou to a team win, as Kamehameha took the top spot for the boys. Pac-Five beat out Punahou for the girls team title.

In the Oahu Interscholastic Association Championships at Nanakuli, the McKinley boys and Castle girls claimed the team titles.

Jeff Lim (16:35) of Mililani beat Castle's Cheyenne Diaz (16:49) for his second straight boys crown. In the girls race, McKinley's Sheena Thain (12:14) took first ahead of Farrington's Euvelyn Calma (12:24).

The Honolulu Marathon State Cross Country Championships will be held Nov. 10 on Kauai. The Kamehameha boys and Punahou boys are the defending state champions.