The powerhouse softball team at Campbell isn’t the only group of fleet-footed Sabers making tracks.
Tristen Dulay is simply picking up where she left off. The Saber sprinter placed first in the 100-meter dash (12.36 seconds) and 200 (25.62), then anchored the Campbell 4×100 girls relay team to another golden finish at the Cal Track Ruby Tuesday Track and Field Invitational.
Steamy, almost breezeless conditions at mid-day made it even tougher on Dulay against a field that included Yorba Linda (Calif.) and many of the state’s top programs. Her win in the 100 was especially impressive because the race was restarted several times due to a glitch in the timing system.
As a junior in 2015, Dulay placed second in the 100 and 200 at the state championships on Maui. Both times were personal records, and she has not let up since. Dulay trains with Leeward Track Club and coach Tony Jones, as well as her father, Clifford.
The lack of an available track facility at Campbell — the synthetic track has not yet been cleared for use — means the Sabers practice on campus, often on concrete. That led to a bout of shin splints for Dulay in the past month.
“A lot of times, I was running pain. During spring break, I’ve been running every other day,” said Dulay, who put in extra work at a nearby park — on grass — with her dad.
As a freshman, she placed third in the state 100. As a sophomore, she got hurt the week before states, but still ran on the winning 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams for Campbell.
Dulay has a 3.8 grade-point average, including an IB Calculus class, and hopes to run for the University of Hawaii.
Among the off-island elite runners was junior Maya Reynolds of Kihei Charter School. The tiny school in central Maui sent just two runners out of its group of “16 or 18” athletes, Reynolds said.
Reynolds, the defending state champion in the girls 400, won the event on Saturday with a time of 58.44. She was less than satisfied, though.
“My best time was in my freshman year,” she said of a 56.1 time at states that was good for third place behind winner Alyssa Bettendorf (Seabury Hall) and Diamond Briscoe (Pearl City). “Sophomore year, I had a lot going on physically, plus injuries.”
Reynolds changed things up by going back to the sport of her Haiku Elementary School years: cross country.
“I did it to keep lean and have fun,” said Reynolds, who has a 3.5 GPA.
She trains with her team and with Rudy Huber, who coaches at Kamehameha-Maui. Her practices for both are at War Memorial Stadium in Wailuku.
“Our team has definitely built up. I started out at Haiku Elementary and then we did middle-school Kiwanis track in sixth grade. I wasn’t any good,” she said. “Coach Rudy cleaned me up a lot from seventh grade. He’s trained a lot of state champions.”
Reynolds is hoping to attend a trade school in Europe — one of her parents is a German national.