Rashod Tanner put it into high gear Saturday night.
The Moanalua athlete won the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the long jump at the OIA championship meet at the Mililani track.
He chalked it up to preparation.
“Stretching, warming up, taking it seriously,” Tanner said. “Making sure my body was prepared. Eating right. Drinking water and staying hydrated.”
Tanner was trying to get under 11 seconds in the 100, but just missed, finishing in 11-flat.
“I hit my PR, but still trying to get down to the 10s,” said Tanner, who is gearing up for states early next month.
“It’s going to be good,” he said about heading to that event on Maui. “There’s going to be a lot of fast, respectable guys. I really want to race them. It should be fun.
Among the top runners he’ll be competing against are Seabury Hall’s Noah Payne, who has a PR of 10.70, and Saint Louis’ Roman Wilson, who won the ILH championship Saturday afternoon in 10.99.
Tanner’s winning time in the 200 was 22.29, and his victorious long jump was 21 feet, 1.25 inches.
Tireless athlete Leilani Leopard of Campbell placed in four individual events, including wins in the 100-meter dash (12.62) and the 100 hurdles (15.13). She placed a close second to Radford’s Naomi Bates in the 300 hurdles and to Mililani’s Mackenzie Reed in the 200-meter dash.
In the 300 hurdles, Bates’ 44.33 surpassed Leopard’s 45.18 from earlier in the season and now stands as the best Hawaii mark in 2019 so far. Leopard was three-tenths of a second slower than Bates at 44.36.
“I felt really good from the start in the 100 hurdles and I went over the hurdles smoothly,” Leopard said. “Been training all season and the goal is states. I’m trying to get my times down in all of my events because I know I can do it.”
In the 200, Reed’s 26.12 edged Leopard’s 26.16. But in the 100, it was Leopard (12.62) coming out ahead of Reed (12.72).
“I was ahead for the first 80 and in the last 20, I saw her coming,” Reed said about Leopard. “My muscles were tensing up, a foot tripped me up and I dove to the finish line and was lucky I fell forward.”
Reed captured the 400 (58.95) and the 200 (26.12). She previously ran Hawaii’s best in 2019 in both events (58.76 and 25.82).
In the team standings, the Mililani girls (96 points) and Radford boys (76) finished on top.
McKinley’s Narayana Schneider won the 1,500 in 4:05.47 but didn’t get below his PR of 4:00.61 (Hawaii’s best in 2019) that he ran earlier this year.
“The conditions were better today,” he said. “I really wanted to go today, but my body wasn’t reacting like I wanted it to.”
Nicholas George of Kaiser, who won the 800 in 1:57.5o, passed Schneider’s previous best 800 time of 2019 so far this year — 1:58.23.
Kalani’s Nathaniel Balangitao won two individual events — the shot put (46-4) and discus (151-6).
Radford’s Michael Edwards ran a 39.02 in the 300 hurdles and is in some fine company with Kamehameha’s Tanner Moku, Baldwin’s Rey Cadiz and Punahou’s Chris Paige heading to states. Moku ran an ILH-record 37.99 at that league’s title meet earlier Saturday, Cadiz’s PR is 38.90, and Paige’s PR is 38.92. Moku’s effort surpassed Dana Navarro Arias’ 38.10 for Maui High in 1999, which still stands as the state-meet record.
