Peña is All-Schools sprint queen

Friendly Joy Peña crowned herself as the sprint queen of the recently concluded 12th Public School System/McDonald’s All-Schools Athletics Championship after sweeping all four short distance events.

Marianas High School’s Friendly Joy Pena, right, prepares to pass the baton to teammate Ryan Relucio in the mixed team relay of last month’s Public School System/McDonald’s All-Schools Athletics Championship.
(Jon Perez)

Peña collected a total of six medals, five of which were gold with Gabrielle Race adding three more as Marianas High School bets had an 8-6-1 haul to top the standings. Saipan International School came in second with 3-2-6.

Peña opened her medal romp in the 60m run as she crossed the finish line in 7.94 seconds. Though she failed to beat her last year’s time of 7.81, her performance was enough to eclipse her 8.08-second qualifying time.

Teammate Zarinae Sapong settled for the silver with an 8.27 finish, while Maui Doculan of Saipan International School came in third (8.54).

Peña then topped the century dash in 14.61 followed by Hopwood Junior High School’s Pin Shankweiler (15.09) and Doculan (15.84).

She continued her amazing run in the 200m sprint with a 29.59 finish with Sapong (30.31) and SIS’ Minami Sakai (34.32) settling for the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Peña completed her sweep of the short distance races when she topped the 400m run in 1:12.60 with Sapong (1:15.27) and Race (1:19.22) coming in at second and third, completing MHS’ 1-2-3 finish.

She and Sapong also won the long jump gold and silver, respectively, with leaps of 4.15m and 3.95m, while Shankweiler ended up at third (3.85).

Peña also won a silver in discus (15.63m) where she finished behind Chenoa Bunts-Anderson, who led SIS’ sweep of the throwing events. Bunts-Anderson threw a distance of 17.85m. Kye Tamm, also from SIS, placed third at 15.54m.

Race then topped the middle distance event with victories in the 800m (3:22.86), 1,500m (6:13.32), and 3,000m (13:23.65) runs for her four-medal haul.

Agape Christian School’s Miriam Zhao (3:54.95) and SIS’ Nicole Huer (4:07.73) finished second and third behind Race in the 800m run, while Julia Ishikawa of SIS (7:05.96) and Claire Song of ACS (7:50.65) duplicated their feat in the 1,500m run.

Tamm ruled the javelin throw with a distance of 17.91m followed by Sapong’s 16.31m and Bunts-Anderson’s 13.01m.

Bunts-Anderson completed SIS’ sweep in the throwing events when she cleared a distance of 7.48m in shotput, while Tamm ended up with the silver medal at 7.23m with ACS’ Song bagging the bronze (6.42m).