Iolani Cross Country Invitational At Kualoa

This is a topic I could probably write a book on - if I had the time...But, mainly because of the Invitational I am so busy, I don't. The invitational website had 2654 hits on Sunday, the day after the meet. My photo galleries had 26,697 hits, just on Sunday, and about 90% of those were the cross-country galleries. Wow! Those are all-time records for any of my websites.

So, I'm busy answering questions, taking orders, and trying to keep up with my daily photo responsibilities. I do want to make mention, though, of a few local performances on Saturday.

The Intermediate girls race was much anticipated by this XC fan. Lea Lundblad, from Seabury on Maui, won last year's race by a hair over Iolani's Katie Pellitteri. Katie is injured currently and probably would have run in the varsity race anyway, so that rematch wasn't going to happen. But, Jenna Wong, Iolani's number 2 runner stepped in and stayed right with Lea through the whole race. Lea won in a super time of 13:20 with Jenna at 13:24. Kimberly Pugliese, a top OIA runner, came in 3rd at 13:40.

Other girls performances of note include the girls 2 mile open winner Amanda Tamanaha (13:35), and a 2nd place for Julie Besenbruch (19:34) and a 6th place for Haley Abing (20:01) in the varsity race. You may not realize how hard it is to finish in the top 10 in the varsity. We're talking about going against a lot of great mainland teams here, with a long history of running at the 3 mile distance. Hawaii has just switched the girls to the 3 mile distance.

In the boys intermediate race, Wyland Luke (1st at 12:03), Isaiah Sata (2nd at 12:04) and Borys Pleskasz (4th at 12:11) excelled.

Local boys also finished 1st and 2nd in the JV race with Micah Gomes at 18:22 and Christian Putegnat at 18:31.

In the boys varsity race we had 2 boys in the top 10. Kon Weber was 7th at 17:21 and Manu Adolpho (Molokai) was 8th at 17:31.

I'll try to upload more pictures later but the uploads are going very slowly at the moment. Be back later.