Visiting Highlands Spark MIL-Yamamoto Invitational Trials
Baldwin's Keelan Ewaliko is currently third place in the boys long jump with a distance of 20 feet, 1 3/4 inches going into today's finals of the MIL-Yamamoto Invitational. Photo by Rodney S. Yap.
By Rodney S. Yap
Highlands High School and Hawaii Preparatory Academy’s Shane Brostek are the visiting competitors at this year’s Maui Interscholastic League-Yamamoto Invitational Track & Field Meet.
Of the 18 events that required trials on Thursday, Highlands managed to produce the top qualifier in nine. Jeannuel Williams is best in the girls 200- and 400-meter sprints, while Sean Plousha is Highland’s top qualifier in the boys 110 highs and 300 intermediates.
Meanwhile, the boys ring events is shaping up to be a duel between a pair of Division I college football prospects who signed letters of intent to play in the Pac-12 Conference, at Washington and Utah, respectively.
Baldwin’s Pasoni Tasini, headed for Utah next fall, is off to his best track start in his four-year career. Tasini added more than 18 feet to his best discus throw this season to lead all qualifiers at 169 feet. His previous best was a 150-8.
Tasini failed to qualify for the state finals in the discus last year. However, his 48-9 3/4 in the shot put gave him a sixth-place finish at state, but no medal. Tasini has already set a PR in the shot put at 51-5 1/2.
After Friday’s trials, the four-sport Baldwin athlete trails Brostek in the shot put, 48-53/4 to 55-01/2.
For Brostek, the MIL-Yamamoto meet is his first track competition of the season. The future Washington lineman, who has a history of improving on the second day of a two-day meet, will need another come-from-behind effort to catch Tasini in the discus as Brostek’s best was measured at 152-1 on Friday.
As a junior last year, Brostek won the discus with a throw of 173-4 at the state meet held here. He improved from his third-place position and 159-10 from the trials.
Brostek also won the shot put with a toss of 55-11 1/2. Again, the HPA standout improved from his 54-foot throw in the trials.
Today’s finals of the MIL-Yamamoto Invitational start with field events at 4:15 p.m., while the first running event, the girls 100 hurdles, is set for 5:20 p.m.
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