GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
Pac-Five long jumper Chantel Franco came in for a landing at the ILH meet yesterday at Kamehameha Schools.
Warriors step up for meet
Not even small splashes of rain could stop the Kamehameha boys and Punahou girls teams from winning the Interscholastic League of Honolulu track and field championships yesterday at Kamehameha.
While the Buffanblu girls ran away with their team championship, the Kamehameha boys team survived tough challenges from Iolani and Punahou, much to the surprise of coach Sam Moku.
"Going into this meet, I actually didn't think we had a shot at winning," Moku said. "We have a couple of boys resting injuries for states and I thought without them able to compete for us, it was going to be a tough challenge for the rest of our boys to step up."
But step up they did as Moku got clutch performances from his athletes in many events, including the high jump, where Waika Spencer surprised everyone by winning with a jump of 6 feet.
"Waika's jump was so huge for us, because we didn't expect him to even qualify for states, much less win the high jump," Moku said.
Other key performances from the Warriors included Nick Frazier winning the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes, as well as Sam Wescott's first- and second-place finishes in the 800- and 1,500-meter events, respectively, earning high praise from his coach.
"Sam is one of our key players," Moku said. "He and Patrick Morrissey from Iolani have been battling back and forth ever since eighth grade, and today was another one."
Meanwhile, the Buffanblu girls took home the team championship, led by a record-setting performance by their 4x400 relay team, which broke the 16-year-old meet record by a second.
"I was happy with the way the girls performed," Buffanblu coach Duncan Macdonald said. "One thing about these meets is that these are high school athletes and you never know what to expect from them on any given day."
Also claiming individual championships for the Buffanblu were Talitha Liu in the triple jump, Elyse Wong in the high jump, Pippa Macdonald in the 100- and 800-meter races, Carly Killam in the 200- and 400-meter dash, and Jennifer Lau in the 300-meter hurdles.
"Tonight showed this team is going to be tough come the state tournament, but it is still going to be a dogfight," Duncan Macdonald said.
While the big schools dominated the team standings, Word of Life showed it can hang with the larger schools, taking home four individual championships.
Careena Onosai won the discus and shot put events on the girls side, while Brashton Satele won the boys discus and Logan Taylor squeezed out a win in the 110-meter hurdles by five-tenths of a second.
"I wasn't too happy with my time," Taylor said. "I had a bit of a bad start and it really came down to the wire."
While winning the ILH championship is no small task, many coaches were quick to point out that the meet is also the last tune-up before the state championships.
"I made sure to tell my kids that this would be a very big stepping stone for us," Moku said. "We kept a couple of kids out due to injury, but we still wanted to make sure we performed as well as we could in this meet."
