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Flashback: Fitting swan song for Song
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Posted on Oct 21 2020
Ken Song, front row right, is seen here along with other students heading out to the course during an interscholastic race last year. (Contributed Photo)
Multi-sport athlete Ken Song marked his last high school cross country season in style after earning an All-Island Team honors in the 2019 Asia Pacific Invitational Cross-Country Championships in Japan.
The Saipan International School graduate was selected on Team Marianas, joining forces with fellow SIS runners and Agape Christian School students. He finished in the Top 16 of the men’s 5K race to make it to the All-Island Team. The 18-year-old completed the race at the Urayasu-shi Sogo Koen in Tokyo in 18:23.2 for the No. 12 spot overall in the boys division, which featured nearly 100 runners from Japan, Guam, and the CNMI.
Song was also the fastest among the CNMI runners, beating Kuu Nishimura (19:44), also from SIS, Agape’s Kobe Yang (20:16), SIS’ Sam Culp (20:20), and Zhijie Cao (20:54). Other Team Marianas finishers in the boys division were Agape’s Xinshi Liang (21:01), Shan Haozhe (21:28), Teng Zhang (21:56), and Yutian Lou (22:02), and SIS’ John Paul Sablan (22.21), Robbie Schorr (23:04), Charles McDonald (23:08), and Paul Xiong (25:17).
Team Marianas runners pose for a group photo after competing in the 2019 Asia Pacific Invitational Cross-Country Championships in Japan. (Contributed Photo)
In the women’s division, Team Marianas’ Top 3 finishers were SIS’ Anika Snyder, Tiana Cabrera and Malika Miyawaki, who clocked in at 23:05, 23:34 and 25:12, respectively. Agape’s Eunice Xu (25:36), Emma Pang (24:38) Alice Yang (25:58), Jiamei Xu (26:11), Nancy Han (26:28), Shi Yihong (26:54), and Vivian Wu (27:07), and SIS’ Jinju Thompson (28:40) were the other Team Marianas runners in the women’s division.
With Song finishing in the Top 16 and his teammates and the squad’s female runners also posting respectable times, Team Marianas placed third in the overall rankings, joining St. Mary’s/Seisen and Christian Academy in Japan in the podium.
Meanwhile, this year’s edition of the Asia Pacific Invitational Cross-Country Championships in Guam was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
