Hawaii
Hawaii track and field team remains competitive despite facility waiting game
The Hawaii track and field team’s throwers operate in an auxiliary space that can’t quite contain the objects they hurl.
Its sprinters, distance runners and leapers warm up on a borrowed track and turf field next to elementary and middle schoolers enjoying P.E. class.
Decidedly not ideal, but such is the hard-knock life for the Rainbow Wahine, who have found a way to maintain – even upgrade – their standards amid a prolonged waiting period for a new on-campus facility.
Last week, UH finished third in the Big West women’s championships at Cal Poly, winning four events for their third straight top-three finish.
“We’ve reached a point where that’s not a surprise anymore,” UH track and field head coach Madeleine Carleton said this week.
On the heels of the meet, UH had two athletes – Hallee Mohr (discus) and Tara Wyllie (triple jump) – selected for next Saturday’s NCAA West Regional in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
And sprinter Isabella Kneeshaw, who won the 400 meter dash and helped UH sweep the Big West 4×100 and 4×400 relays, was named UH’s first Big West Freshman of the Year on Thursday.
Carleton said the team has made the best of a tough situation all the while. It has not had a designated space to call its own since the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex underwent renovations to accommodate UH football games starting in 2021.
Most of the team has practiced at Saint Louis School’s track and turf field, which is sometimes shared by Crusaders students during their time.
“It was certainly a very difficult year, for all of us,” Carleton told Spectrum News in a recent phone interview.
She said it was her veteran athletes who refused to let the team’s standards drop and held the group together.
“This team has fourth- and fifth-year seniors on the team who have been here really for the whole build of the program,” Carleton said. “You know, they remember when the team was ninth place and sixth place in the conference. And they’ve been the ones to bring it all the way up to consistent podiums where we are now.”
UH is in the process of constructing a new track and soccer venue at the former Cooke Field as part of a $30 million project. But construction experienced a delay of months before getting underway last October. Frequent Manoa rains have delayed the project further.
Cooke Field construction work as seen in February. (Spectrum News/Brian McInnis)
Carleton said her understanding is that the track portion could be done by October and usable for practices this fall. Its full functionality, including soccer, could be January 2025.
Communication with administration during the track and field team’s displacement started off poorly, she said, but has improved over time.
A finalized facility is a tantalizing prospect for a program that has “the most complete team that we’ve ever been,” in Carleton’s estimation. She and cross country/track director Tim Boyce welcome the day they can host track meets again.
But the immediate focus is the NCAA regionals, where Mohr and Wyllie will look to pick up where high jumper Lilian Turban left off last spring. (Turban nursed a foot injury this outdoor season and was held out of the Big West championships.)
Mohr, a 6-foot-1 senior and native of Raymond, Washington, set a UH record in the discus and won the event at the Big West with a throw of 58.25 meters (191 feet, 1 inch). That placed her 11th heading into the West Region meet, where she will appear for the third straight year.
“She has had an amazing, consistent high-quality season,” Carleton said. “She’s won most of the competition she entered in her specialty event this season, including having a big PR at the at the Big West meet, which was really exciting. And she is approaching the Olympic trials qualifying standard. I mean, that’s how good that performance was.”
Wyllie, a 5-foot-9 sophomore from Canberra, Australia, did not have her best showing at the Big West championships, but she advanced to the regional by virtue of her 12.77-meter performance at the Stanford Invitational on March 30. She won the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation indoor triple jump title in February.
“It’ll be a great experience for (Wyllie) to build off of,” Carleton said. “I think she’s definitely someone that in future years could be looking to qualify for the finals.”
Hawaii triple jumper Tara Wyllie will get a chance to compete at the NCAA West Regional at an early stage in her college career. (Photo courtesy of UH Athletics)
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.