Kamehameha wins boys track and field crown
| • | Track and field results |
By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer
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The Kamehameha Schools' sparkling and picturesque Kunuiakea Stadium became an even more beautiful place for the Warriors' boys track and field team last night, as they ran away with their second Island Movers State Championship in four years on their new home turf.
Kahuku's Jerrod Avegalio broke a state meet record in the boys discus with a toss of 186 feet.
Junior Travis Beyer won three gold medals and a bronze and classmate Nick Frazier won two golds and two silvers to lead Kamehameha, which totaled 68.5 team points. St. Anthony finished second with 27 points, followed by Maui (20), Iolani (18) and Punahou (17).
"We've got all young guys, too," said Beyer, who won the 100- and 200-meter dashes and was on the Warriors' winning 4x400 relay team. "Next year, we're gonna have almost the same team back."
This year's Kamehameha team was more than good enough. Beyer sat out the previous two weeks while on conduct probation, but came back to win the 100 in 11.29 seconds, the 200 in 22.5 and run the second leg of the 4x400, which the Warriors won in 3 minutes, 24.67 seconds.
"I'm happy I won the 200 because it was so close, and that was about the fastest I've run the 100," Beyer said. "But I was disappointed with the (100) time, because it's not that good for a state champ."
Frazier won the 400 with a time of 50.28, placed second in the 100 (11.51) and 200 (22.52), and ran the anchor on the 4x400 team. Frazier had won Interscholastic League of Honolulu titles in the 100 and 200 last week, when Beyer was out.
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"I don't mind Travis winning (today)," Frazier said. "The main thing I cared about was the overall team."
King Kekaulike's Akoni Clubb, second from left, won the boys 110-meter hurdles after some competitors stumbled.
Kamehameha coach Sam Moku said Beyer and Frazier were two key pieces to a very large puzzle at the start of the season.
"First you gotta find the corner pieces, and it was those two, then Sam Wescoatt (relay, distance) and Jeremy Kamaka'ala (distance)," Moku said. "I've been coaching Nick and Travis since they were in the eighth grade, and this is their third state tournament so they are well-seasoned. So I knew going into the year that we had something special."
Kahuku senior Jerrod Avegalio was the only boy record-setter, with a discus throw of 186 feet to break the old mark of 181 feet, 11 inches set by Iolani's Ed Ta'amu in 1997. Avegalio's mark is 10 feet, 11 inches short of the all-time state best mark set by Kamehameha's Brandon Ala last year, but Ala's mark was set during the Interscholastic League of Honolulu trials.
Avegalio's throw of 186 still is one of the nation's best this year and qualifies him for the adidas Outdoor National Championships in Raleigh, N.C., on June 13-14. The country's 10th-best high school throw this year was 191-1.
"Yesterday's practice was good, but this morning I woke up with a sore throat and got mad," Avegalio said. "I was mad because I didn't want to be sick. But you can work anything to your advantage. Maybe being mad gave me something extra, because I did it (set the record) despite the ailment."
Avegalio set an O'ahu Interscholastic Association East Division meet record last month with a throw of 186-10 at Kaiser, and he won the OIA championship last week at Mililani with a throw of 181-6. He said last week his goal for the state meet was 200 feet.
"My thing is I set my goal to always be extra high, that way my performance will be high," Avegalio said. "I'll never be totally satisfied. I'm still making too many mistakes — I gotta keep the discus down, it keeps going high. I love that field at Kaiser, because I throw there all the time. But this place is still new to me, and I'm still not comfortable. That's why the warm-up is so important."
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Kahuku weights coach Dwayne Fely said Avegalio's record throw was almost directly into a stiff wind.
Kamehameha's Nick Frazier, center, edges out King Kekaulike's Matt Linder, left, and Kamehameha's Travis Beyer, to win the 400.
"The flags were almost straight out," Fely said.
Avegalio, a lean 6 feet 2 and 187 pounds, has overcome other obstacles. He traveled to Samoa last summer to get an intricate ceremonial tattoo from his hip to his knee.
"I'm like an heir, so it was for that and also for some personal reasons," Avegalio said. "But it took about two months to recover, and I couldn't get bigger."
His third attempt started out well but got caught in the wind and stuck into ground vertically.
"The first time I ever threw in a state meet, on Maui (in 2001), I did that," Avegalio said. "Now I did it again, on my last throw."
Avegalio also took second in the shot put with a mark of 55-3¥. He said he will attend the University of Arizona in the fall.
The other double-winner was Radford senior Andrew Maixner, who won the 1500 with a time of 4:07.98 and the 3000 in 9:15.50.
"They're both (personal records), and the 1500 was a PR by five seconds," Maixner said. "I was confident I would take the 3000, but I was a little skeptical about (winning) the 1500."
Maixner won the 1500 by .6 seconds over Iolani's Patrick Morrissey. He won the 3000 by over five seconds.
