What a wonderful memory this will be in the distant future for ‘Iolani freshman Jolie Nguyen.
Nguyen ran the 2-mile distance at Mid-Pacific Institute in 13 minutes, 14.49 seconds to earn the Interscholastic League of Honolulu cross country championship.
Freshman Jolie Nguyen won Saturday’s ILH championship race and her ‘Iolani team placed second behind Punahou. (Photo courtesy of ‘Iolani athletics).
Some day, most likely, she’ll remember that the season almost didn’t happen. As it turned out, all of the ILH runners were fortunate that the competition didn’t get canceled due to the COVID-19 health crisis. Many other sports bit the dust in 2020-21, including football and soccer.
But despite Nguyen’s performance (along with two other top-10 finishes by Raiders freshmen teammates), ‘Iolani did not get the team championship.
That distinction goes to Duncan Macdonald’s Punahou girls. Sasha Iizuka-Sheleey took second place in 13:15.70, a little more than a second behind Nguyen, and Buffanblu teammates Lauren Saunders (third place, 13:24.39, Brie Yamamoto (eighth, 1:52.39), Kyle Hasegawa (ninth, 13:53.61) and Elise Wong (10th, 13:55.17) all wound up in the top 10 to give Punahou the title.
In the end, the Buffanblu had 32 points, to ‘Iolani’s 43.
Hawaii Baptist — led by Caley Chun (fourth place, 13:32.83) — finished third in the team standings with 69.
All schools participating in the race at Mid-Pacific ran separately from other schools for safety reasons. Times were tallied and compared afterward.
Aside from Nguyen, Raiders freshmen Jaymie Frith (sixth place, 13:43.92) and Maila Healing (sixth, 13:44.80) also landed in the top 10.
Screenshots of all Punahou and ‘Iolani runners as well as the top 30 overall are below.
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ALSO AT BedrockSportsHawaii.com — Easy As 2-3-4: ‘Iolani Boys Run To ILH Cross Country Championship
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