It was a good day for the young runners of the O'ahu Interscholastic Association.

Mililani freshman Kristin Ali Keith and Leilehua sophomore Bryce Jenkins captured individual titles at the OIA championship meet yesterday at Central O'ahu Regional Park in Waipi'o.

The Leilehua boys and girls teams took the team titles.

Jenkins won the 3-mile race in 16 minutes, 39.03 seconds, followed by teammate Jon Chun in 17:29.10. Kaiser's Trevor Wong was third in 17:43.30.

Jenkins won despite rolling his left ankle toward the end of the race.

"The grass grew over a hole, and I didn't see it," he said. "It was kind of near the end, so I don't think it affected my time."

Jenkins led the entire race, because "I don't have much of a kick, so I have to get ahead," he said.

His 10-meter lead early on grew to about 100 meters at the 2-mile mark, and although he didn't hit his personal goal of a sub-16 race, he was happy that his win would help the team's scoring.

The Leilehua boys placed four runners in the top 10: Jenkins, Chun, Alan Akagi (5, 17:46,14) and Donzel Scott (8, 18:10.30). Their fifth runner was Jayson Dumaoal, who finished 33rd (19:17.26).

Leilehua scored 46 points, followed by Kaiser with 70 and Radford with 97.

"I'm really excited," Leilehua boys coach Shawn Nakata said. "We're a really young team, too, so we're happy with the results."

Nakata said the team trained on grass the entire season in preparation for the OIA and state meets.

On the girls' side, Keith won the 3-mile race in 20:17.18, followed by Pearl City's Dayna Domingo in 20:36.75 and Kaiser's Leialoha Bratton in 20:56.07.

Keith took the lead from the beginning, which she hadn't planned on doing.

"I was going to stay behind, but I felt they were going slow, so I went ahead," Keith said.

She "set into my pace," then began picking it up near the final portion of the course.

Keith said she was "kind of surprised" about winning the title. She competed in varsity races during the preseason, but ran against junior varsity competition for the Western Division championship and the JV championships.

The Leilehua girls squad scored 63 points, followed by Mililani with 68 and Roosevelt with 101. Savannah Lowrie was Leilehua's top finisher in seventh at 21:40.04, followed by Lauren Crawford (10, 21:50.77), Kelli Rice (12, 21:56.65), Mary Rose De Vera (17, 22:32.63) and Kaualiilii Segawa (23, 22:54.51).

Recruiting at the middle school in Wahiawa paid off for Leilehua girls coach Lena Lynn Miyamoto, Nakata's sister.

"We had a small squad last year, so we tried to get out there," Miyamoto said. "They worked hard, and in the offseason they did summer workouts and spent additional time running. I told them they needed to put forth the extra effort. They worked pretty hard."

The top two teams for the boys and girls, usually made up of seven runners each, automatically qualified for Friday's Honolulu Marathon State Cross Country Championships at CORP.

The top 68 boys and 67 girls, including the runners who qualified with their teams, advance to the state meet.