Kapolei is home to more than Hawaii’s fastest sprinter; it might have the best throwers, as well.
Charlinda Ioane and Darius Lopez swept the shot put and discus events at the OIA West track and field championships at Kaiser on Saturday, joining Devin Jenkins as gold medalists for the Hurricanes.
Radford’s girls won the team title with 140 points behind wins by Tyler Whitener in the 400 and Jasmine-Padeken-Pasigan in the pole vault. Mililani won the boys team title by five points over the Rams. Pearl City’s Diamond Briscoe was the only girl to break a meet record, running the 200 meters at 25.21 seconds. She also won the 100 to match Ioane with two individual golds.
Ioane flung the disc 142 feet and put the shot 45 feet, 5 inches, both personal bests for her and the latter 8 inches away from Dede Kavanaugh’s meet record from 1982. Ioane is the defending state champ in the discus.
“Every record is nice to get,” Ioane said. “I try to improve every week, that’s the main thing.”
Ioane has just two meets left before moving over to the University of Hawaii on a track and field scholarship: the OIA championships, April 26 and 28 at Kaiser, and the state championships, May 11-12 on Hawaii island. At the latter, she can expect a showdown with Hannah Myles of Le Jardin, who is the class of the ILH in the throwing events.
“They are head-to-head,” Kapolei girls coach Eugene Leong said. “It’s going to be a good competition between the two. I am biased, but I put the edge on Charlinda.”
Lopez won the discus by 8 feet with a toss of 153-3 and the shot put by 4 feet with a 46-3 effort.
Jenkins blew the field away in the 100 meters as usual, earning an official time of 10.47, good enough to beat the meet record of 10.7 set in 1986. It wasn’t his fastest day on the track, but he’ll take it.
Last year at this time, Jenkins was battling a hamstring injury but still recovered to win states.
“I’m all good this year, thank God,” Jenkins said. “Without Him I wouldn’t be where I am at right now. I had to save a little for the state meet.”
Jenkins didn’t have enough juice to bring the Hurricanes the 4×100 title, moving Kapolei from fourth to second on the anchor leg but losing to Mililani. Jenkins pulled up lame in the 200, finishing fifth. Kapolei boys coach Tony Gamboa said it was just a cramp.
“He is a one of a kind right now,” Gamboa said. “He keeps working hard every day and doing the right things to prepare for states.”
Kapolei’s boys won two middle distance races, as well, with Nathan Shirley taking the 800 and 1,500 meters for the Hurricanes. Radford’s Romar Bacosa won three events, and teammate Kevin Acacio won two.