At Christian Academy, a two-member track and field squad is racking up individual first-place finishes at a rate rarely seen in Hawaii athletics.

Raion Black exploded last year, winning the girls 100-meter dash at the HHSAA state championships on Maui as a sophomore. Michael Chin emerged as a force in the 800, placing third as a sophomore.

“Raion is a jokester, but she’s serious when she’s competing,” Chin said. “She’s got natural ability plus work ethic.”

Black relishes the small-campus environment, where her three younger siblings are on best behavior. The support she and Chin give each other is unique, to say the least.

“Mike’s quiet, but when he does talk, he always has something nice to say. If he’s joking about something, he does it quietly,” she said.

After winning the Interscholastic League of Honolulu titles in the 100, 200 and 400 last spring, Black went to the state meet and ran a 12.28 in the 100 and was third in the 200 (25.33), both wind-aided times.

After the season, things got a little more interesting. Chin went to the Junior Olympics in July, unheralded and virtually unknown, and placed second in the country in the 800 with a run of 1 minute, 57 seconds on a blistering-hot day in Wichita, Kan.

“It was over 100 (degrees). I think I could’ve ran faster if it wasn’t so hot,” he said of that day, posting a time 2 seconds faster than his finish at the state meet.

The difference was pure sweat: more strength training and positive peer pressure.

“I trained hard over the summer and had more competition at practice,” said Chin, who regularly ran against recent Kamehameha graduate Jordan Thibodeau and Nathan Shirey of Kapolei.

It’s all rather astounding for Rick Chin, Mike’s father. Rick was a sprinter in his day and is the team’s head coach. Chin’s Godspeed track club got Mike busy at age 10, but the youngster was a tough sell.

“I thought, ‘This kid doesn’t have it.’ I’m guilty of it. I’m a dad,” he said. “One day my wife and another coach noticed he’d come across the 400 smiling howdy-doody while other kids were crying.”

With victory came passion.

“I wasn’t really into it when I was younger, not until I was almost in high school,” Mike Chin said. “I had success and I realized I could run the 800 well.”

Since then, Godspeed club coach Steve Connell has tutored Chin. The junior’s top times this spring are 52 seconds in the 400 and 2 minutes flat in the 800. Nobody has beaten him head-to-head so far.

Black’s furious finishes — she loves the setup coming off a turn in the 200 and 400 — wowed longtime officials and fans of the sport last year. Her father, Raymond Black III, was a long-distance competitor in his day. Her mother, Ceandrys, was a sprint champion in Louisiana. Raion had no idea her parents were into track and field when she took some encouragement from church friends and joined Godspeed as a 10-year-old. After a slew of fifth- and sixth-place finishes — and an occasional last-place showing — she wouldn’t quit.

“I’m a fighter. I don’t like to give up,” she said. “Then I found out that my mom was a sprint champion. That gave me a push.”

Black was humble in success last year, but her pride as a Patriot was unveiled.

“I still get the same reaction now: ‘You go where?’ I’ve been at Christian Academy since preschool. I’ve built a lot of close relationships,” she said.

Black spent part of the offseason training with middle-distance runners like Chin to build up endurance. It all adds up to a stellar student-athlete (3.8 grade-point average) with little time for anything frivolous.

“I give up a lot of social time, but it’s good. It keeps me out of trouble,” said Black, whose times this spring are 12.69 in the 100, 26.30 in the 200 and 1:00 in the 400.

Coaches Chin and Connell do all they can to keep the Patriots one step ahead. The technical aspect, the form, the change-ups to practice routine to refresh and confuse muscles — “This is something that’s been done long before P90X,” Chin said — isn’t always enough.

For Black, there’s been a constant theme this year.

“Coach always says, ‘Don’t sacrifice power for quickness!’ A lot of it is mental. When you hit a wall during a race, it feels like you’re on your last breath,” she said. “I tell myself the finish line is there. I’m running for God and He’s at the finish line.”

Rick Chin’s penchant for studying the history and preparation never ends.

“My coach (in Gardena, Calif.) ran under Frank Horwill, the father of five-pace training,” he said. “It’s about changing it up. It’s not an exact science.”

“The trick is to keep them fast and training all year. That’s what they need at the next level. It’s hard for Hawaii athletes; the competition’s not that great compared to the mainland.”

That’s a plain fact with such a small population base in the islands. It amazes Mike Chin that the Hawaii state record holder, Joey Bunch (Radford), did his best (1:51 in the 800) despite no close competition.

“I don’t know how he ran that fast by himself. He had no competition. The next fastest runner was in the high 1:55s,” he said.

For now, state meet records and championships are on the horizon. The day-to-day training at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is enough to concentrate on. Chin, the coach, marvels at his son’s development since transferring from Kaimuki after his freshman year.

“He pushes harder in academics, but he gets his self-esteem from track,” the father said. “I’m so proud of him.”

Chin will head to Arcadia, Calif., for a major competition this week. Black has her sights set on national competition in the offseason.

The bar continues to rise for the tiny school on Red Hill. There are 15 students in the junior class, and the whole school, kindergarten through 12th grade, is on one campus.

“The kids seem to be more motivated and that helps me,” Chin said.

Black clearly is among the motivated.

“Coach (Chin) really pushes us. He won’t let us give up and he gives me a lot of encouragement,” she said. “My family and my church family are always there to support me. I always think of them at practice. I don’t want to fail them.”