High schools
Kamehameha boys, Punahou girls out to defend state titles

• Iolani volleyball team to take on some of best on Mainland
• Player OK after bee sting reaction
• Weekly honors
• Advertiser's top 10 football poll
• Football standings, statistics

By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer

Punahou's best, from left, front: Julie Jordan, Carly Killam, JoAnna Lim, Laura Melahn. Back: Pippa Macdonald, Britten Bailey, Marissa Mori, Rachel White, Jessie Carey. The defending state champions are expected to be in the running again along with Iolani.

Kamehameha cross country runners, from left, Sam Wescoatt, Justin Peterson and J.B. Bolson, embark on a training run along the Ala Wai. The Warriors have won four consecutive state team titles. Photos by Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Fortunately for each team, that meet happened to be the Hawai'i High School Athletic Association/Honolulu Marathon State Championships.

That sort of irony is not unusual in a cross country season, which can feature as many ups and downs and twists and turns as the courses on which the athletes run.

"It's a strange sport," Kamehameha boys coach Steve Jenness said. "Nothing is etched in stone."

Although race distances are almost constant (about three miles for boys, two miles for girls), no two courses are alike, and strategy can play as big a part in success as does conditioning and speed.

Even an accomplished track star, like defending state 200-meter and 400-meter champion Lauran Dignam of Iolani, can find the going rough on a cross country trail.

"You have to be mentally tough," said Dignam, a senior. "You have to know your body and know how to keep pace. In track, you can use all your energy in just a short time, but in cross country, you have to hold it for a lot longer. And with the different hills, if you're having a bad day and you're hurting, it hurts even more."

But the rewards can be great.

Years of running the steep slopes of Kapalama Heights have turned the Kamehameha boys into a powerhouse. The Warriors' state title last year was their fourth straight, and they return three runners who finished in the HHSAA meet's top 10, including individual champion Justin Peterson.

Junior J.B. Bolson finished third in that meet, and senior Jordan Medeiros was ninth. Junior Sam Wescoatt, who finished 17th, later took third at the state 1,500-meter finals.

"We don't have a lot of superstar guys, but we've got a good group," Jenness said. "We've put in a lot of hard work over the years, and it's paid off."

The Warriors' top challenger last year, Seabury Hall, will be without longtime coach John Wienert. After guiding Seabury Hall to 10 straight Maui Interscholastic League championships, Wienert stepped down this year.

Peterson won the individual state title by covering a hilly course at Hawai'i Prep in 17 minutes, 35 seconds. Again, this was a race that was won not necessarily by the swiftest.

"Justin is a strong runner, but he's also a very smart runner, and he played his cards right," Radford coach Ron Pate said. "That course was a brutal course — after the first mile, it was like one mile going straight uphill. People who went out too fast paid the price."

Although Peterson is the defending champion, this year's favorite could be last year's runner-up, Punahou's Todd Iacovelli. Pate, who coached for eight years at McKinley before becoming Radford's coach in 1994, said Iacovelli may eventually draw comparisons to former Hawai'i distance greats Henry Marsh and Duncan Macdonald.

"Todd is real fast, he has more speed than anybody," Pate said. "And the course at states this year, at Kaua'i Community College, is a flat course. It's definitely a Todd Iacovelli course."

In the O'ahu Interscholastic Association, Pate said Andrew Kamikawa (19th in the 2000 HHSAA meet) and Jeff Lim are expected to lead a strong Mililani team, and Castle's Cheyenne Diaz (39th in state) could emerge as one of the top individuals.

CHRISTAL CUADRA: Maryknoll senior won Iolani meet

"They've got everyone back," Macdonald said. "(Raiders coach) Greg Char has put together a great team. They're going to be tough to beat."

At the season-opening meet on Saturday featuring some of the island's top teams at Iolani, the Raiders had five of the top eight finishers. And that did not include their top runner, junior Becki Jones, who sat out the race because she just had her wisdom teeth pulled.

Jones finished fifth at last year's state meet.

But Char tempered Iolani's strong showing by noting that Punahou was missing a couple of its top runners as well.

"It all depends on who shows up on race day," Macdonald acknowledged.

The Buffanblu's top state finisher last year, Lynn Kamimoto (seventh in state), graduated. Their second-best state finisher, Kari Tanimoto (12th), transferred to Pearl City.

JESSICA DOMINGO: Sixth in state last year for Kamehameha

And Macdonald also has a talented runner who was hampered by injuries last season: his daughter Pippa. His other daughter Eri was a four-time state champion, and Pippa finished second in the state two years ago to former national champion Victoria Chang.

"She had a knee injury and a series of other things hurting last year," Macdonald said of Pippa. "But she's pain-free now."

Pippa, however, is not free of challenges for an individual state title.

Last year's champion, Annie Kawasaki of St. Francis, graduated. But King Kekaulike junior Chandi Bickford, last year's runner-up, is back, as is Maryknoll senior Christal Cuadra, who finished fourth. Also expected to vie for a state title are Kamehameha sophomore Jessica Domingo (sixth in state last year), Kaiser senior Ashley Swart (eighth) and Waiakea junior Tamarah Binek (ninth).

Cuadra easily won Saturday's Iolani meet with a time of 11:25, followed by the Raiders' Kristin Shinkawa (12:17) and Nicole Anderson (12:27).

"It's going to take some luck on our part to win states again," Duncan Macdonald said. "But this sport reminds me of the ugly duckling story: You never know how things are going to turn out."