Miles Of Practice Bring King Close To Top In Cross Country
By Jack Danilewicz
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When a lot of their contemporaries were miles away from the classroom - at least in mind-set - the members of King Intermediate’s cross country team returned to school four days a week during their semester break last month to ensure giving their best effort this fall.
The payoff came recently in King’s season-ending meet in which the boys took second to Mililani Middle School.
“I was pleasantly surprised at their finish,” King coach Brian Viola said.“All year we were fourth or fifth, so we’re real proud of them. They exceeded my expectations. They all ran their race of the year. I think being on our home course gave us an advantage.”
While the King girls team didn’t fare as well as their male counterparts, eighth-grader Lauren Calkins came up big, individually, placing seventh overall out of 185 girls. She began the season as one of only two returnees on the roster, which numbered 20 this fall.
“She’s a very steady runner,” Viola said.“She’s smart when she runs. She uses a strategy when she runs, and she’s very strong.Strong,steady and smart would be the best way to describe her. She’s been our best (female) runner for two years now. She’s worked hard and is very dedicated.”
Cedric Petty Jr. led the way for the boys in the standard 2-mile race,finishing second to Keoni Borja (12:00) of Mililani with a time of 12:18. He finished in the top 10 in all five of his races this fall.
“He was the leader for us all year,” Viola said. “He worked hard, and he showed the others how to work hard.
He’s strong mentally. You have to be strong in the mind to be able to keep going when others would stop.
“In our meet, he ran a 5:34 for the first mile, which is extremely fast, and it took a lot out of him.”
While Mililani had several runners at the same skill level, thereby creating daily competition in practice for Borja, Viola noted that Petty was far and away King’s top runner and had to thrive on self-motivation at times.
“He had to run by himself a lot and push himself to work harder and go faster,” said Viola, who also praised the showing of King eighth-grader Tanner Oshiro, who placed eighth overall with a time of 13:19, despite limited practice because of a conflict with his play on the Kahaluu Broncos football team.
“It’s the only race he ran in, and it helped bring us a second-place finish,” Viola said of Oshiro, a running back/wide receiver for Kahaluu. “He was with our track team, and he did come out and practice a few times over break,but basically,he just came out and ran.”
Viola also had high praise for Conner Meers (27th overall),Daniel Hayashi (33rd) and Jared Luke (55th).
The meet at King was the fifth and final race of the season. King also ran in meets at Campbell, Kaiser, Punahou and Iolani, and had a sixth-grade division as part of its own 11th annual season-ending meet. In the girls division, Kapunahala Elementary’s Kaitlyn Nomura took first with a time of 14:43. Brenda Nekonishi of Kaneohe Elementary (15:31) took third,while Tyler Ebisuya (13:39) finished fourth for Kaneohe in the boys division.
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