From left, Kubasaki’s Savannah Stewart placed third, Kadena’s Isabella Price won and Kubasaki’s Kayden Hammac took second in Thursday’s Mike Petty 100. Hammac is normally a soccer player. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
KADENA AIR BASE, Okinawa – Kayden Hammac sprinted to second-place finishes in the 100 and 200 and anchored Kubasaki’s 400-relay B team to victory in Thursday’s 17th Mike Petty Memorial track and field meet.
Not bad, for a striker who leads the Dragons’ girls soccer team with nine goals and six assists this season.
“And this was without training, without being near (starting) blocks,” Dragons assistant track coach Gabriell Horton said. “With the times she’s running, she could win Far East.”
“I did track at my last school,” said Hammac, who transferred from San Diego, where she ran track at Canyon Hills High School and posted times of 12.81 in the 100 and 27.39 in the 200 last spring. “I had the opportunity to do it again and I really missed it.”
Hammac went under 27 seconds in the 200 for the first time on Thursday, clocking 26.94 and coming in second to freshman teammate Savannah Stewart, who was timed in 26.34.
She also finished second in the 100, timed in 12.92 seconds, .13 behind winner Isabella Price of Kadena and .02 ahead of Stewart.
In the 400 relay, Hammac carried the baton on the fourth leg to lead Kubasaki to first place in 55.66.
“We kept telling her to join track,” Stewart said of Hammac.
But the track and soccer seasons coincide in DODEA-Pacific, unlike in California, where soccer is played in the fall.
Ultimately, Hammac decided to go with soccer, in which Kubasaki is the defending Far East Division I tournament champion.
Hammac was one of nine Kubasaki girls soccer players who entered Thursday’s meet at Kadena High School. It was an all-comers meet, so they were welcome to enter, just as a handful of Dragons distance runners did at last year’s Petty.
“I’d like to make this a tradition,” Kubasaki girls soccer coach Chris Eastman said. “It’s pretty cool.”
Kubasaki’s Savannah Stewart leads the way for teammate Kayden Hammac – a soccer player – to the finish line in Thursday’s Mike Petty 200. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Kadena’s Adriana Williams heads down the home stretch to win the 1,600. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Kadena’s Jeremiah Williams makes for the finish line and wins the 1,600. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Kadena’s Dieudonne Kambeya runs the anchor leg to victory in the 400 relay. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Kubasaki soccer player Alexa Welsh takes second in the 400. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
Pacific record holder in the 100 Jeremiah Tucker of OCSI swept the 100, 200 and 400. (Dave Ornauer/Stars and Stripes)
The Dragons’ distance runners, including sophomore Victoria Facchini, were also cool with it.
“As a cross country runner, (I’m) seeing that I’ve maintained my fitness and that I’m still a good runner,” Facchini said.
The Dragons soccer team was just coming off a first-place finish in the Yabiji Cup against Japanese teams on Miyako Island, in which they outscored their four opponents 17-0.
Stewart also won the 400, posting a personal best 59.87 and going under 1 minute for the first time. Another soccer player, Alexa Welsh, was second in 1:06.90.
On the boys side, Pacific 100-meter record holder Jeremiah Tucker of Okinawa Christian swept the 100 (Pacific season-best 10.78), 200 (22.38) and 400 (51.67).
Long-distance events were all Williams, all the time. Kadena senior Jeremiah Williams won the 1,600 in 4:47.90 and the 3,200 in 10:27.74, while sophomore Adriana Williams was first in the 1,600 in 5:52.40 and the 3,200 in 13:16.31.
Kadena’s Derryck Miller and Ananda McCoy swept the hurdles, Miller timed in 17.48 in the 110 and 42.85 in the 300, and McCoy 17.52 in the 100 and 53.38 in the 300.
Among throwers, Kubasaki’s Isaiah Thompson was tops in the shot put (13.32 meters) and discus (106 feet, 8 inches).
The Petty meet is held in honor of late Kubasaki athletics director Alva W. “Mike” Petty, who is considered the father of modern track and field on Okinawa. He revived the sport on island in 1990 after a lengthy hiatus. The Petty meet was first held in 2003.
The only teams participating this year were on island, something that Kubasaki coach Joshua McCall said he wants to remedy next year.
“We’re trying to build this back up,” he said of a meet that in past years was held over two days and featured as many as 15 schools. Thursday’s meet was completed in just under 3½ hours.
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