The weather was excellent at CORP on Saturday afternoon for the finals of the Intermediate and JV ILH Championships. There were 6 races held as there also was an Open race for boys and another for girls to give everyone a chance to run before next week's Varsity championships.
with a great run of 17:39. St. Louis, though, does not have a scoring team. So, although Iolani took the next 2 spots, Punahou's depth and quality allowed Punahou to almost sweep all the races. Punahou had 27 points to Iolani's 40 points.
Monday - Girls JV Red Soccer
Another huge game is on tap for tonight, this time against Punahou. I have been confused about how the playoffs work, but finally, I believe I have an explanation that I can understand and makes sense. From one of the athletic directors at Iolani:
This rematch against Punahou was held at the Kamehameha Schools pool and it was for the championship. According to some rabid water polo fans:
"The score was 5-3. The Iolani Boys' Intermediate Water Polo Team is the 2006 champion! There was excellent execution from the game plan to game time from Coaches David Grainer, Randy Bart, James Duca and Deven Matayoshi. The team played like champions with a tough and relentless defense. They made every opportunity to score count. Sweet victory was clearly earned by the Iolani Intermediate team."
And this:
"It was a great match. The boys were intense and had great defense. The goals were strong and skilled. Goals were scored by David Lim (2), Chris Nichols (2) and Tom Hartwell (1). Goalie Austin Strong made at least 8-10 blocks. Iolani beat Punahou 5-3! Other players, who often are scorers, contributed just as much with great defense and assists: Daniel Barr, Vladimir Bernstein, Shovan Datta, Kacy Johnson and Connor Grune.
The future of boys water polo looks to be in fine hands. Great job boys!
The third game was a classic. Iolani started out strong and shot ahead to a 6-3 lead. Punahou surged back to a 10-7 lead, then to 17-12. Back and forth these two fine teams went. It reminded me of Ali-Frazier. Before your time, huh? Anyway, Iolani never gave up and came back again, pulling into a 22-19 lead. It looked pretty good at this point, but Punahou had other ideas, running off 5 crucial points in a row. At 24-22, Punahou was in the driver's seat, but Iolani refused to fold and came back to 24-24. The excitement and tension in the air was at a fever pitch as these teams battled for the advantage.
The winner was Brie Adams with a time of 14:07. Second place went to Allison Calabrese who had a time 14:12. Kimberly was at 14:17.
Pleskacz of Iolani in a time of 11:52. I believe this was a meet record. Borys has been running well all season but has really come on strong in recent weeks.
Brooke Laporte finished the 2 mile course in a time of 13:49 to win the Girls Open division and lead Punahou to a dominating victory. Punahou had 7 girls in the top 11 totalling an almost perfect 17 points and, once again, showing the tremendous depth of the Punahou girls team this year.
Tomoyuki Miura of Roosevelt won with a time of 18:15. Radford took the team title with Kamehameha, Punahou, and Iolani close behind.
Haley Abing made a successful return from injury with a dominating 19:51 over the 3 mile course. I think I heard that was a meet record. Pretty impressive when you realize she's been out for the past few weeks with a back injury. In the team competition it was Punahou continuing their overwhelming strength with a score of 36 points. Kamehameha, Iolani and Mililani were quite a bit behind. Punahou had their 5 scorers finish no lower than 11th.
Leilehua. Bryce had a time of 16:42 and put in a strong bid for the state championship. Kon Weber (Iolani) will have something to say about that but on this day it was Bryce by 21 seconds.
I then walked the 100 yards over to the start of the Punahou Invitational Cross-Country Meet. The vog and humidity were oppressive. I was dripping just from walking around and wondering how the kids would manage on the tough Punahou course. Amazingly, there were some record setting performances. More on this when I get a chance, I hope.
Keopulani Park Maui
This team gave enough thrills to their loyal fans to last a lifetime. It was a very short season, only 5 games, but to go undefeated, especially the way they did it, was superb.
almost the whole game, but never by much. They tied it at 34-34 with about a quarter to go. I had to leave at that point but a reliable source told me that WOL scored first to make it 40-34. But they missed the extra point which would turn out to be costly.
41-40, Iolani!
16 members of the Iolani Girls XC team traveled to California to run in the Central Park Invitational in Huntington Beach over the weekend. In the frosh/soph division, 4 out of 5 girls ran personal bests to beat out Segerstrom, 57-61.
Tuesday - Boys JV Red Volleyball
So much happening, information overload has taken over this reporter, but I'll try.
Big Bear won the boys varsity with a score of 24 points with their scorers at 1, 3, 5, 7 and 8. They also had 11th and 12th for good measure. That, folks, is domination.
Well, the boys varsity volleyball team ALMOST did it, losing in 3 close games. The varsity football team, a resounding thumping. I had to leave at the end of the 3rd quarter, but at that point it was 39-10, Punahou. We stayed with the bigger Punahou team until about the middle of the 2nd quarter. We actually had the lead, 10-7, at 9:20 of the 2nd quarter.
so I could get shots of the Iolani players facing me. In practice, this meant that most of my pictures are of our defense from a pretty big distance. Not optimum, but my very long lens allows me to get these shots. I did get quite a few interesting angles on the Punahou offense that the Punahou fans might enjoy.
I'll try to expand on this posting when I have time. For now, it's off to the cross-country meet at Kamehameha Schools.
