Brown, Thornton excel on track; Quallio finally falls; Davis shines for Kinnick on mound: What we learned in Week 10.0
Published: May 17, 2009
Musings, mutterings and the occasional bit of schmahts as Ornauer begins the week-long Far East soccer journey:
-- He doesn't wear a brown UPS uniform, but where Nile C. Kinnick track and field is concerned, Donavan Brown can do plenty for you. Aside from winning the 400 hurdles, Brown won the 200 for the first time in his career and captured gold in the 400 the very first time he ran it, in Saturday's Kanto Plain Invitational Track and Field Meet at Tokyo's Oi Pier Ground.His feats paced the Red Devils to their school-best team finish, 83 points, in the event.
-- Six multiple winners arose from the Kanto, featuring 13 girls and 12 boys teams from around the theater. American School In Japan captured the boys and girls team titles and broke three meet and league records in the process.
-- A day before her 18th birthday, ASIJ's Gwen Thornton led the record cavalcade, shattering her own 400 record, then helping the Mustangs' girls 1,600 relay team beat its 1-year-old mark.
-- When you gaze at what Siarria Ingram did, winning the 800 and mile and upstaging longtime Kanto power Jennifer Stolle of ASIJ in the process, remember that Ingram is a freshman and will be back next year. No telling what this kid can do.
-- The big upset came in the boys 1,500, when thestar-studded career of Zamasenior All-American Andrew Quallioended in shocking fashion, as ASIJ’s Sam Krauth finally caught him, winning in record time of4:06.5, breaking Quallio’s record of 4:10.3 set in the Kanto finals. It was Quallio’s first loss in two years.
-- Even more of a surprise than that was what Quallio did afterward. He grabbed his hip number card, scrawled a congratulatory message on it for Krauth and ran over to bring it to him. "You can't teach that," Quallio'scoach Mitchell Moellendick said.
-- Wish Quallio well as he moves onto his next life mission, at the Air Force Academy. "The Air Force is getting a good one," Kubasaki coach Charles Burns said of Quallio, who did win the 3,000.
-- On the diamond, Kubasaki claimed the unofficial DODDS-Pacific baseball crown by rallying past Kinnick 7-6 in Saturday's Kanto Invitational Tournament third-place game at Camp Zama's Rambler Field. Kaleb Robinson pitched a complete game and tripled and scored the winning run on a passed ball in the seventh, but Dragons coach Randy Toor was very impressed with Kinnick right-hander Eddy Davis, who struck out 29 batters in 14 innings over the weekend. "We definitely faced the best pitcher I've ever seen in my four years here in Eddy Davis," Toor said.
-- A hearty congratulations to the Kanto champion St. Mary's International Titans, who captured the crown by blanking American School In Japan 5-0. That gives the Titans a sort of unofficial triple crown; they won the Kanto regular season and also the Kubasaki Spring Fling Tournament back in April.
War Far East soccer. 16 1/2 hours (from this writing).
