About midway through the swim meet, the Black team conceded to the Purple team. With the Pearl City Invitational looming on the horizon followed by the state championships in early December, Mokihana Aquatics coach Orlando “O” Anaya said Mokihana Aquatics
About midway through the swim meet, the Black team conceded to the Purple team.
With the Pearl City Invitational looming on the horizon followed by the state championships in early December, Mokihana Aquatics coach Orlando “O” Anaya said Mokihana Aquatics hosted a two-day swim meet to help swimmers improve on their standings heading into the off-island competition.
“We thought we could make it more fun for the kids so we divided the group into the Black and Purple teams,” Anaya said.
Winston Kawamoto coached the Black team and Jeff Rahill was at the helm of the Purple team.
However, scheduling conflicts for some swimmers caused several competitors to forego the meet, creating the lopsided situation that had Kawamoto conceding Sunday morning.
Anaya said the meet format was not the only thing Mokihana Aquatics did to enhance the youngsters’ participation.
The Boys & Girls Club had their truck on hand for the two days, and following the final event Sunday, B&G leaders held exercises geared to building teamwork among the swimmers and their parents.
Dick Roth, an Olympic gold medalist swimmer from the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, also spoke with the Mokihana group following the Sunday events.
Evan Hamamoto, 11, and Yasmine Ware, 9, were outstanding individual performers following the final event.
Hamamoto, of the Purple team, finished third overall in the boys individual standings, but posted a nearly perfect meet by improving his times in nine of the 10 events he competed in.
In the process, Hamamoto earned three HI-AA times and five HI-A times, one of the overall goals of the fun meet. Hamamoto shaved 10.48 off his previous time in the 200 Free with a 2:46.03Y swim followed by an improvement of 9.72 seconds off his previous time in the 100 Back event. He posted a 1:31.81Y in the swim for a HI-A time.
“A lot of swimmers had great meets by earning A and AA times,” Anaya said. “This is what they need to qualify for the Pearl City Invitational that will be held at the Central O‘ahu pool on Nov. 25 to 27.”
Anaya explained because the meet was not sanctioned, state qualifying times could be recorded, but the swimmer needed to repeat the performance at a sanctioned meet. One of those is the Pearl City event.
Ware, who has been enjoying tremendous progress through the summer months, also finished with time improvements in nine of the 10 events she competed in.
Among her finishes, Ware posted four state qualifying times, although Anaya was not sure which of those four were attributed to this weekend’s meet and which ones she had earned through participation in earlier sanctioned meets.
Ware posted qualifying times in the 50 Fly (38.11Y), the 50 Breast (45.07), the 50 Free (32.89) and the 100 Fly (1:29.31). Her biggest improvement came in the 200 IM where she finished with a 3:16.38Y time, an improvement of 31.15 seconds off her previous swim.
A four-way tie between Ware, Meaghan Sims, Matthew Holzman and Kelsey Tanaka resulted at meet’s end, each swimmer tallying 50 points apiece.
Kaitlin Santos finished second in the girls individual standings with 48 points followed by Sinead Sims finishing with 46 points. Ware and Sims tied for the lead for the girls.
Hamamoto was third in the boys individual standings with 46 points followed by Sean Holzman ending a point back. Holzman and Tanaka tied for the lead slots.
Anaya said at least six swimmers qualified for entry into the Pearl City meet by making HI-AA times.
These include Tanaka, Meaghan Sims, Ware, Kaitlyn Jarry and Kelly Culliney.
Meaghan Sims posted seven HI-AA times and three qualifying times in her 10 events. Matthew Holzman posted two HI-AA times in the 50 Free (29.52Y) and the 100 Breast (1:23.63Y) and Tanaka posted five HI-AA times and a qualifying time in his 10 events.
