Track Team Off to a Running Start

Molokai’s track and field season debut featured a win and several top 10 finishes, results that pleasantly surprised Head Coach Jessie Ford.

Alex Simon earned first place the 300 meter hurdles. With Simon recently coming off her wrestling season, Ford said she told Simon, “No pressure.”

“And then she did that!” said Ford of her results. “She won by a hundredth of a second – it was a super close finish, very exciting.”

Lehiwa Pedro placed third in discus, another unexpected result for Ford.

“Lehiwa surprised everybody in her debut throwing discus – it her first time competing [in the event],” said Ford.

Kori DeRouin and Sehja Pedro also placed eighth and ninth in the same event, respectively.

The girls’ 400 meter relay team placed sixth, and Molokai also had a couple of top 10 finishes in shot put.

On the boys’ side, Grayson Aldridge ran an eighth place finish in the 1,500 meter race, and the boys 800 sprint medley team placed sixth.

“The boys have a lot of talent on their team. They ran some hard races so we need to do some more workouts,” said Ford.

She called the weekend “a good start to our season” and added they also learned what they need to work on, including form and weightlifting, Ford said.

The team’s next event is on April 10 at War Memorial on Maui.