Iacovelli, Cuadra dominate ILH cross country
By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer
As expected, Punahou School's Todd Iacovelli and Pac-Five's Christal Cuadra repeated as Interscholastic League of Honolulu individual cross country champions yesterday at Kamehameha.
In the team standings, Kamehameha's boys captured the title by one point, 38-39, over Punahou, and Iolani won its second ILH girls championship in four years, scoring 26 points to Punahou's 47.
Iacovelli, a senior, ran the 3-mile boys course in 16 minutes, 6 seconds. Cuadra, a senior at Maryknoll, ran the 2-mile girls course in 11:24. Both conquered the slopes of Kapalama by finishing at least 34 seconds ahead of their nearest challengers.
"Todd is in pretty good shape, he's running really fast," said Kamehameha senior Justin Peterson, the defending state champion who finished second (16:41) yesterday. "I started kinda conservative, and he went out real hard. I tried to catch up, but I was already too far back."
Iacovelli, who was upset by Peterson in last year's state meet at Hawai'i Prep's hilly course, said he was taking no chances this time.
"I don't try to control other people, I just run my own race and make sure I'm in control," Iacovelli said. "My goal today was to try and run it in 16:05, and I had a 16:06, so I'm real happy."
Iacovelli would have been even happier if the Buffanblu had won the team championship, but Kamehameha's Peterson, J.B. Bolson, Sam Wescoatt and Jordan Medeiros took four of the top seven places to lead the Warriors to the narrow victory.
"Our front four are veteran guys who stayed real close to the front," Kamehameha coach Steve Jenness said. "We were fortunate to pull it off."
Jenness said Medeiros, who finished seventh with a time of 17:09, came up big in particular.
"He ran 45-50 seconds faster than usual," Jenness said. "We knew he was capable of that, but it really helped us today."
Cuadra, as she did all season, dominated the girls race. Second-place finisher Kristin Shinkawa of Iolani accomplished a rare feat by breaking the 12-minute barrier at 11:58, but she still was over a half-minute behind Cuadra.
"There's the most impressive runner out here," said Iacovelli, pointing to Cuadra as she sped by. "Look at her motion — no up and down movement at all, everything is going forward. That's pretty cool."
Cuadra, while happy with her time, said she is capable of more.
"This was identical to the time I had here two weeks ago," Cuadra said. "I probably could have run it faster. This is my favorite course, because it's the perfect combination of hills and flats."
Team-wise, Iolani was nearly as impressive. The Raiders had five runners finish in the top 10, including three of the top four.
"We've had an influx of new runners, and they brought us new energy as well as talent," Iolani coach Greg Char said. "We also have strong senior leadership; they set the standard in regards to how we practice."
• Lim, Thain triumph: Mililani's Jeff Lim captured the O'ahu Interscholastic Association boys title yesterday at Nanakuli, but McKinley won the team championship.
Lim, a senior, completed the 3-mile course in 16:35.7 seconds, ahead of Castle's Cheyenne Diaz (16:49) and 'Aiea's Stephen Meyers (16:58).
The Tigers totaled 52 points. Farrington was second with 82 points.
McKinley's Sheena Thain won the girls title, covering the 2-mile course in 12:14.8. Farrington's Euvelyn Calma finished second at 12:24 and Castle's Leonie Sugai third at 12:29.3.
The Castle girls won the team crown, tallying 67 points to runner-up Pearl City's 74 points and Kaiser's 93.
