Breaking News
Local Sports

Spartans take top spots at season-opening Seabury Invite

By Dakota Grossman 5 min read

OLINDA -- Under the hot Upcountry sun, Seabury Hall's Micah Brighton and Layne Millen blew away the Maui Interscholastic League field of runners in the boys and girls races, respectively, on their home course Saturday afternoon.

As the Spartans opened the cross country season with victories at the Seabury Hall Invitational on the Olinda campus, Brighton was stoked to collect his inaugural gold medal.

"It feels pretty good," the sophomore said after finishing the 5-kilometer course in 17 minutes, 48.2 seconds. "It's my first win ever for cross country, so it's kind of nice to know that I've come this far."

The young runner led the Spartan boys team, which consists of all freshmen and sophomores, to a team win with 30 points.

Kihei Charter was second with 49 points and defending MIL champion Maui High, led by second-place finisher Galen Okamoto, was third with 60 points.

"I think they all actually did really good," Brighton said of his squad. "It would be awesome if my team could win MILs this year and just all of us improving and making it to states would be awesome."

Among the girls, it could be a different story as the Spartans only had three runners and one on standby on Saturday, the first time the 16-time MIL girls champions have not fielded a scoring team.

"We're having a tough experience getting girls out, especially coming straight off of COVID, it's really hard to find people willing to come out," Millen said after winning with a time of 21:30.1. "But with the four of us, it's really awesome to have a strong and tight group. We really depend on each other and know each other really well."

Still, the junior hopes the Spartans will be able to field a team soon to "continue the Seabury Hall legacy."

Seabury needs two more female athletes to enter the team standings.

"It's really amazing to draw from such inspirational people, like (2021 MIL champion) Kaylee (Volner), and all the superstars of the past and it's really nerve wracking, too, to kind of know that this is where we came from and any of us could step into that role and be among the next great runners," Millen added.

The Maui High girls won the team title on Saturday afternoon with 30 points while Baldwin was in second place with 39.

From the gun in the boys race, the front pack got into a quick pace. Okamoto and Brighton battled each other on the first mile of the three-lap hilly course before Brighton started to pull away heading into the second half of the race.

The Spartans' Kayden Volner, the junior varsity winner, and Jacob Romero sprinted neck-and-neck to the finish for third and fourth place overall, respectively.

"It was actually kind of hard going as fast as Galen was on that first mile, but I don't know, I was just trying to keep the same pace that I was going or relatively the same," Brighton said after catching his breath. "But yeah, it was hard. I was just telling myself I got to keep going, and I was able to do it."

As a senior -- now taking the reins from 2021 state champion teammate Kaimana Cantere, who graduated in May -- Okamoto feels there's a lot of expectations on him this season, but said, "I just want to do the best that I can."

"You just gotta put in the work," he said before warming down with his team. "I've been putting in the work and so have my teammates and all the other runners out here."

Though teams competed in a relay last weekend to ease runners into cross country -- each runner ran 1.5-mile legs -- this was the first 5K of the season.

This weekend was a learning experience, Okamoto said, because he was able to really see where everybody stands and knows what he wants to improve on moving forward.

"I gave it my all and ran my best race," he said.

For Millen, she took the lead within the first 100 meters and slowly created a significant gap from the chase pack that included runners from Kihei Charter and Maui High as well as her teammates.

Kihei's Layla James placed second with a time of 22:07.3, and the Spartans' Prianna Dugied was third in 22:31.5.

"It's really exciting to be back. I was really nervous and so excited because we haven't had, like, a real cross country season for like two, three years (due to COVID-19) and so it's just really good to be back," Millen said. "It's our home course, so we just live and breathe Seabury every day, so it's nice to open the season in a place that's familiar and a place that we love so much."

* Dakota Grossman is at dgrossman@mauinews.com.

Starting at /week.