Punahou sophomore Elli Brady is an A student, plays the clarinet in the school’s concert band and used to spend more time playing soccer than running.

But once she took up running seriously as she did a year ago, there was no stopping her.

She burst onto the prep scene as a freshman, winning the state high school girls varsity cross country championship and the Interscholastic League of Honolulu’s girls varsity 3,000-meter run.

According to the latest rankings by alohatrack.com, the Hawaii MileSplit affiliate, Brady is Hawaii’s No. 1 girls 3-mile cross country runner. And Brady is determined to repeat as state cross country champion – despite being hampered earlier this season by tendinitis in her right knee – and take another step in her daunting quest to become a four-time state girls cross country champion. That would match what has only been achieved once in Hawaii prep sports history – by one of her assistant coaches, Punahou graduate Eri Macdonald, who dominated girls cross country and middle distance running in Hawaii in the mid-1990s.

"Much is expected of me," Brady said without a hint of brashness. Rather, her words are suggestive of her drive, a reflection of a focused student-athlete who is already setting goals for herself not only on the race course, but also in the classroom and for later in life.

She wants to achieve a distinguished record as a Punahou student and athlete, and later at the university level at her school of choice, Notre Dame, that would lead to a post-running career as a neurosurgeon. "My grades are also important to me. No good grades, no good college," she said.

"I also want to do the Olympics – like Duncan. He’s my role model," Brady added, referring to her coach, Duncan Macdonald, Hawaii’s greatest runner, and also the father of Eri Macdonald.

Brady has been described by Duncan Macdonald as "a natural" and "fearless" as a competitor, descriptions that are similar to how former Punahou cross country coach Dan Tuttle used to describe Eri Macdonald, whom he trained. "She was just tough as nails," Tuttle said.

Brady acknowledges that all of the praise she has received is more a reflection of the potential her coaches and others see in her. What counts is not what others say she can do, but what she actually does achieve, she said. That will require continued hard work, she said.

It is the sort of hard work that transformed friend and competitor Heidi Nicholls, a senior at Hawaii Baptist Academy, into a much better runner this season and a fourth-place finisher at last week’s Punahou Invitational, three spots ahead of her, Brady said.

It’s the sort of hard work that is reflected in the intensity of close friend and teammate Kyleigh Mann, a junior, Brady said. "We push each other in training. We make each other better. She is the most intense."

Brady said she needs to get tougher mentally.

"My mind can let me fall behind. But it can also give me that kick," she said.

Brady intends to have that kick, that drive, ready at the Hawaii High School Athletic Association’s cross country state championships on Oct. 28.

Among those presenting the greatest challenge to Brady’s quest: No. 2-ranked Mann and No. 3-ranked Dakota Grossman, the ninth-grader from Maui’s Seabury Hall, who nearly won the Punahou Invitational last week, despite not warming up because of a flight snafu that nearly prevented her from competing.