Louie Ondo may have been born to run, but his birth as a competitive runner was delayed.
Waiakea cross-country coach Jordan Rosado got his first glimpse of Ondo while watching the basketball team undergo conditioning.
“We saw him running about a mile in front of the team,” Rosado said. “I was saying, jeez, boy, we’d like to get him on the team.”
Dedicating himself to running for the first time, Ondo’s debut BIIF season as a junior was perfect. He won every race, including a runaway at the league championships.
Under a blazing sun Saturday at the Canefire Conditioner in Keaau, Ondo just looked different than any other runner. It was so hot, the timer in the boys race overheated, but not before clocking in Ondo and Ryle Cabalse’s winning relay time.
“(Louie) runs unconscious,” Hilo coach Bill McMahon said. “You can’t teach what he does.”
One thing Ondo does, Rosado said, is always go the extra mile in practice. If Ondo is looking for motivation this season, he can try to better his third-place finish at the 2014 HHSAA championships. Last November, Ondo finished more than 41 seconds behind Kamehameha-Kapalama’s Kaeo Cruse in the 3-mile race. In May, Ondo edged Cruse, now a fellow senior, to win HHSAA gold in the 1,500 at the track and field championships.
“When we have practice, whatever everybody does, he’ll do more,” said Rosado, a co-coach along with his wife, Ipo. “Not just him, but some of the others. He’ll do more. His dad will take him up to Volcano and run.”
While Ondo flashed the same form as last season at the preseason conditioner, Kealakehe’s Ziggy Bartholomy had a different look, debuting a shorter, sleeker hairstyle. The junior led the Waveriders to the team title last season, finishing second at BIIFs (48-plus seconds behind Ondo) and eighth at states.
“Ziggy knows where Louie is and wants to race him,” Kealakehe coach Brad Lachance said. “Louie’s so fast and likes to run in front. He’s tough to beat, no question about it.
“Ziggy looks strong this year. Ahead of where he was last year.”
The Waveriders took a bit of a hit but still return four varsity runners, including Adalberto Malagon, who was seventh at BIIFs in 2014 and teamed with Bartholomy to finish third Saturday. August O’Shea also is back, and Jantzen Hing is new to the lineup.
“The key will be finding (more) depth,” Lachance said.
That goes for everybody in the chase for the team title. With seven runners entering races and the top five scoring points, every team is searching for that fourth or fifth runner to count on to score points. The season-opener is 10 a.m. Saturday at Hawaii Prep.
McMahon knows what he has in River Brown (third at BIIFs in 2014), and he was encouraged at the conditioner as the Vikings took six of the top 14 spots, led by Brown and Kai Shumway in second
“River is my fastest guy, Kai is running really well and I have a freshman, Steven Chung, and he is running really well,” McMahon said. “Then I have a slew of kids that are right together. A group of boys fighting for that No. 6-7 spot that’s right together and real even.”
Waiakea won’t be a one-man show thanks to Cabalse and Slater Inouye, and Adrian Larkspur and Jiem Emji teamed to place fourth at the conditioner.
“We should challenge more this year,” Rosado said.
A pair of other runners who finished in the top 10 at BIIFs last year also figure to contend: Hawaii Prep’s Nate Ladwig (eighth) and Konawaena’s Lawrence Barrett (10th).