Red Raiders sweep meet by Dennis Fujimoto – The Garden Island At least 10 Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation records fell during the KIF Swim Championship Meet Saturday. As the Island School swim coach surveyed the pool prior to the start of
Red Raiders sweep meet
by Dennis Fujimoto – The Garden Island
At least 10 Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation records fell during the KIF Swim Championship Meet Saturday.
As the Island School swim coach surveyed the pool prior to the start of the event, she predicted that the event was going to be good because conditions were near-ideal with the pool water temperature being at least one, or two degrees higher than in the previous qualifying meets.
That prediction came true as KIF records fell while Kaua‘i swimmers qualified for state berths in 20 different events.
Kaua‘i High School, who swept all three categories of competition with a combined total of 184 points, saw Matt Ross earn auto times in two events followed by Tyson Chihara gaining an auto time in one event. The pair also paced the Raiders’ boys competition which finished at 87 points for its first place showing.
Kapa‘a High School, which finished in the runner-up berth overall with 108 points, saw its freshman swimmer, Emma Rausch, earn an auto time while leading the Warrior wahine to its 62-point total below Kaua‘i’s 97 points.
Rausch topped a 16-swimmer field in the Girls 100 Yard Freestyle event with a 57:72 swim for the auto berth (57.90), bettering her seeded time of 59.90, and the KIF record of 57.74 set in 1986 by Alisha Golden of Waimea High School.
Rausch overflowed into the consideration bracket by earning a consideration time in the Girls 100 Yard Backstroke event on a 1:06.62 swim, slightly slower than her seeded time of 1:05.27, but enough to better the KIF Championship record of 1:08.80 set on Feb. 10, 2007 by Michelle Woltmon of Island School.
Woltmon, now a senior, finished that event in second place on a 1:09.91 swim to earn a consideration time (1:10.35) in the event.
Chihara, a senior at Kaua‘i High School, also earned a consideration time in the 100 Yard Breaststroke event on a 1:08.02 swim, bettering his seeded time of 1:08.85.
With no time to rest between events, Chihara dove right into the Boys 400 Yard Freestyle Relay event where that Raider team finished with a 3:57.23 performance for a consideration time (4:00.00), bettering its seeded performance of 4:02.98.
Members of that team include Chihara, Ross, Cody Ishiguro and D.J. Herr.
Chihara had earlier earned an auto time in the Boys 200 Yard Individual Medley with a 2:13.01 finish.
Ross earned auto times in the Boys 200 Yard Freestyle event and the Boys 100 Yard Backstroke event where he tripped the clock at 1:53.17 and 1:02.61, respectively. His performance in the 200 Yard Freestyle was better than his 1:54.88 seeded time and a big improvement over the KIF Championship record established by Ben Baldwin of Island School in 2005.
Ross and Chihara joined Aaron Pigott and Kelsey Tanaka on the Kaua‘i Boys 200 Yard Freestyle Relay team which saw the first and second places earn consideration times.
Kaua‘i finished with 1:39.02, considerably faster than its 1:51.53 seeded time, and good enough to break the KIF Championship record of 1:39.32 established in 1991 by the Waimea High School team of Mattos, Harada, Tompkins and Tucker.
Kapa‘a, with swimmers Aaron Belmonte, James Hitchcock, Dylan Haight and Garrett Stephen, finished with a consideration time on its 1:41.94 swim, better than its seeded time of 1:42.09.
Chihara and Ross, part of the Kaua‘i Boys 200 Yard Medley Relay team during the qualifying meets, were replaced by Ishiguro and Herr for the finals.
That earned the Raider team a second finish below Kapa‘a, but the 2:04.02 finish, slower than the 1:54.62 seeded time, was sufficient for a consideration (2:05.00).
Kapa‘a’s team of Haight, Stephen, Hitchcock and Belmonte finished at 2:00.39, also slower than its seeded time of 1:59.11.
Tanaka went on to earn a consideration time in the Boys 100 Yard Butterfly with a 1:02.42 swim, bettering his seeded time of 1:03.04.
Melanie Grindle, swimming for Kula High & Intermediate, picked up two consideration times at the championship meet, one of them coming in the Girls 100 Yard Butterfly where she finished at 1:06.87, bettering her 1:08.36 seeded time and breaking a 1992 Championship record set in 1992 by Britta Read of Kaua‘i High School.
Grindle’s second consideration time came in the Girls 50 Yard Freestyle event where she tripped the clock at 26.87, close to her seeded time of 26.86.
Kapa‘a junior Tania Rames picked up her consideration time in the Girls 100 Yard Breaststroke where she finished first in the 11-swimmer field on a 1:15.62 pace, close to her seeded time of 1:15.59.
Rames and Rausch joined Kara Dastrup and Kaitlyn Jarry to lead the Kapa‘a Girls 200 Yard Medley Relay team to a first finish and a consideration time on a 2:06.98 performance, bettering its seeded time of 2:08.91. That time was also better than the KIF championship record of 2:09.51 set in 1999 by the Kaua‘i team of Hall, Cockett, Matsumoto and Yoshida.
That same team went on to challenge the Kaua‘i team in the Girls 400 Yard Freestyle Relay event, but came up in second place after consistently better the Raider team during the qualifying meets.
With the second finish, Kapa‘a still earned a consideration time with a 4:07.33 performance, bettering its seeded time of 4:09.32 and breaking the KIF Championship record of 4:14.08 set in 2006 by the Raider team of Lamay-McVay, Ford, Tousend and Sims.
The Kaua‘i team of Trisha Lamay, Mary Tousend, Tory Kobayashi and Casie Ford chopped off close to seven seconds off its seeded time (4:10.60) to finish first at 4:04.79 and set a new KIF Championship record.
That same Raider team topped the Girls 200 Yard Freestyle Relay to earn a consideration time with its 1:50.51 performance, bettering its seeded time of 1:53.05 and bettering the KIF Championship record of 1:53.03 set in 2006 by the Kapa‘a team of Grooms, Bendor, C Brady and J Brady.
Ford went on to set a pool record in the Girls 500 Yard Freestyle with her first finish of 5:56.71. Although failing to meet the consideration standard of 5:50.38, the swim broke the pool record and KIF Championship record.
Jessica Maxwell of Kapolei High School set the pool record of 6:03.00 in 2003, and Meaghan Sims set the KIF Championship record in 2007 with a 6:08.55 swim.
In the Combined category, Island School earned 37 points below Kaua‘i and Kapa‘a followed by Kula with 32 points and Waimea finishing with 27 points.
Island School also filled in the third place below Kaua‘i and Kapa‘a in the Girls division with 28 points followed by Kula and Waimea with 19 and 6 points, respectively.
Waimea filled in third place below Kaua‘i and Kapa‘a in the Boys class with 27 points followed by Kula and Island School with 13 and 9 points, respectively.
The swimmers head to Kihei, Maui, on Feb. 22-23 for the Hawai‘i High School Athletic Association’s state championships hosted by the Maui Interscholastic Federation.
