Eda, Race top X-Country finale

Saipan Southern High School’s Seiya Eda and Marianas High School’s Gabrielle Race ruled their respective age groups in the finals of the CNMI All Schools Cross Country Series held last Saturday at the American Memorial Park.

Agape Christian School and Saipan Community School shared the top honors with Eda and Race, as they also came out victorious after clinching four team trophies each.

Saipan Southern High School’s Seiya Eda and Marianas High School’s Gabrielle Race ruled their respective age groups in the finals of the CNMI All Schools Cross Country Series held last Saturday at the American Memorial Park. (Jon Perez)

Eda, who is also member of Southern’s varsity volleyball team, was the fastest among the 20 runners in the boys and girls U18 division. The Southern runner, who ruled the first two legs of the annual cross-country race, completed the three-lap course around AMP in 25:31, 11 seconds ahead of runner-up Alan Zhao of ACS (25:42). Marianas High School’s Mason Fruit, the third leg winner, came in third with a time of 28:31.

Race, meanwhile, made six ACS runners eat her dust after the MHS girls basketball team member crossed the finish line at 30:24, which was a good five minutes ahead of second placer Ruth Wang (35:24), while Miriam Zhou finished third (36:24).

Nathaniel Lim of Mt. Carmel School and Hopwood Junior High School’s Lyka Sally topped the boys and girls U14 divisions with times of 13:22 and 15:41, respectively, while SCS’ Vincent Tudela (13:40) and Annabelle Sablan (15:43) finished second in both categories. ACS’ David Cai (14:00) and SCS’ Mimi Sakano (15:56) came in at third.

Ken Song and Pacific Oceania Junior Championships top tennis player Carol Lee were the first runners in the U12 boys and girls categories, submitting times of 5:35 and 6:00, respectively. SCS’ Matteo Guerrero (5:58) and ACS’ Peter Shen (6:03) came in at third in both divisions.

Kaden Church of Whispering Palms (5:51), SCS’ Kaito Rechucher (5:56) and John Lloyd Tuquero (5:57) of San Vicente Elementary School finished 1-2-3 in the boys U10 division, while SVES’ Victoria Jade Torres (6:27) and SCS’ Hana Ojima (6:44) and Sedrei Camacho (6:54) duplicated the feat in the girls side.

Robert Decourtney of Whispering Palms and SVES’ Kylie Sablan were the best U8 boys and girls runners, submitting times of 6:23 and 7:37, respectively. SCS teammates Jesus Sablan (6:58) and Tyler Hunsberger (7:20) finished second and third behind Decourtney, while Jenny Zhang (7:44) of ACS and Hilah Bacani (7:59) of SCS came in second and third to Sablan.

Meanwhile, SCS won the team trophies in the boys U8, U10 and U12, and girls U10 divisions, while ACS topped the boys and girls U14 and U18 age groups. No team trophies were given in the girls U8 and U14 categories after competing schools failed to come up with five or more runners.

Medals were given to the Top 3 finishers in each category, while all participants received ribbons.

A total of 117 runners from SVES, ACS, SCS, WPS, MCS, MHS, SSHS, William S. Reyes Elementary School, Hopwood Junior High School and Dandan Middle School joined Saturday’s race.