It was cloudy but warm, showers in the not too distant valleys, but thankfully the rain held off. Knowing personally quite a few of the top female runners made this race quite special for me. I've known Lea Lundbald, and her father Mike, for quite a few years when she started coming over for the state championships in summer track. The first time I saw the famous "Lea kick" was in the 800 meter finals when my younger daughter had about a 30 yard lead going into the last turn and lost at the tape. The "Lea kick" is real!
We have two 9th graders at Iolani that I knew were capable of challenging Lea. Katie Pelliteri, who is recovering from an injury, was rounding into form. Jenna Wong has been steadily improving this season and is now one of the top 9th graders. I also keep hearing that Kimberly Pugliese of Mililani can challenge for the top spot.
Throw in a few more girls from the ILH that I know are capable, plus all the girls from the OIA that I don't know, and I was stoked.
At the first mile, it was Kimberly and Noelani Mikami (Kamehameha) with a small lead over Lea, Jenna and Katie. They all looked pretty smooth, except Lea looked like she was struggling a little. I would find out later that she was a bit sick all this week.
At the turn coming in to the finish, it was Lea, still struggling but leading, with Jenna right on her heels and Katie about 4 seconds back. Kimberly had tired and was about 9 seconds behind Katie, while Noelani had dropped off the pace to finish about 20 seconds further back. Then it was the two Maryknoll girls, Brie Adams and Allison Calabrese. Rounding out the top 10 were Jaclyn Knaus of Mililani, Phoebe Jordan of Iolani, and Kara Katsumi Tsuzaki of Punahou.
Both Iolani and Mililani had 72 points to tie in the team competition. Mililani earned the championship through the 6th runner tiebreaker rule.
There were almost 600 intermediates to finish in this meet, which is why I still call it the "unofficial state championship for intermediates".
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