BIIF cross country: Yabe cruises; Kealakehe senior catches up to competition

KEAAU — Waiakea’s Saya Yabe had just finished off another commanding victory in a BIIF cross-country race when a league official, looking ahead to the soon-to-start boys race, said, “Well, the next one should be good.”

The official was right.

Kealakehe’s Ziggy Bartholomy and Konawaena’s Cody Ranfranz caught Waiakea’s Slater Inouye at about the 2-mile mark, and Bartholomy was happy to stick with Ranfranz, the most consistent boys runner this season, until taking the lead with a half-mile to go.

Bartholomy never could shake Ranfranz, but he didn’t need to. Bartholomy said he “had nothing left” afterward, but it was enough to finish first by 88 one-hundredths of a second.

“I could feel him on my back all the way to the finish,” Bartholomy said Saturday at Keaau High after finishing in 16 minutes, 56.22 seconds. “I was dead.

“I lost control of my arms and just kind of flailed to the finish.”

For the Waveriders senior, the cross-country regular season is a process leading up the BIIF championships, where slates are wiped clean.

Yabe’s road has been easy — she’s gone 5 for 5 in league races and hasn’t had to outrace anybody to the finish line. The process has been truer for Bartholomy. For the first three races, he watched Ranfranz and Wildcats teammate Lawrence Barrett finish 1-2.

“At the beginning, I just wanted to see how long I could stay with Cody and Lawrence, because right off the bat, they were ahead of everyone,” Bartholomy said. “Stay with them as long as I can, and hopefully beat them some day.”

It’s good timing on his part that his two victories, including Oct. 1 at Waiakea, came on the cusp of the BIIF championships, which are Oct. 21 at Hawaii Prep.

He credited better training and energy, but it’s too bad for Bartholomy that the championship 5K isn’t back at Keaau High, which is his favorite course and the one last year on which he beat the usually unbeatable Louie Ondo of Waiakea.

Bartholomy was second at BIIFs as a sophomore in 2014 at HPA, behind the now graduated Ondo, but he had a bad time of it last season at the league championships at Kamehameha, finishing sixth.

“BIIFs is going to be fun and interesting,” he said. “HPA, I definitely like it, but it’s one of those where you need to train for it for a couple of months.

“I just have to hope my training has been paying off.”

Yabe’s certainly has. At Sept. 24 at HPA, she finished seventh behind runners from other islands in a state tune-up of sorts.

“HPA is by far one of the hardest courses and that’s because of the hills,” she said. “It’s a 50-50 race. You have hill runners and downhill runners, and I’m not a hill runner.”

Of course, regular-season success doesn’t always translate into titles. Honokaa’s Sophia Cash seemingly came out of nowhere to run past Yabe at BIIFs last season, and a similar scenario played out last spring in the 3,000 at the BIIF track and field championships.

Cash, a sophomore, was third Saturday, more than 89 seconds behind Yabe. Hawaii Prep’s Emi Higgins was second. Cash’s top finish this season was second at Waiakea, but she was still more than a minute behind Yabe, a senior who is only focusing on finishing strong.

“If (Sophia) comes near me then it happens, and will see what happens, when that happens,” she said. “But for now I’m not trying to think about anything.

“I’m just going to be working on not putting any pressure on myself.”

Waiakea has a chance to sweep the team titles (top five runners score points) at BIIFs, though Ka Makani girls figure to run tough on their home course and are the perennial champion.

Inouye, who has finished in the top 4 in all five BIIF races, leads a Waiakea boys squad that has carried the best depth all season.

Konawaena coach Patrick Bradley marveled at Josiah Vallez’s fifth-place finish at Keaau, which came in only his second race and gave the Wildcats three runners in the top five.

The BIIF recognizes winners for Division I and Division II.

“He’s got a lot of talent,” Bradley said of Vallez. “Now he just has to focus.

“He’s making some of my other runners want to go out and work harder.”