Paced by the record-breaking pace of Yasmine Ware, Swim Kaua‘i Aquatics finished 15th out of 34 teams in the state championships. A dozen SKA athletes combined to score 185 points over the four-day Hawai‘i State Short Course Championship held in
Paced by the record-breaking pace of Yasmine Ware, Swim Kaua‘i Aquatics finished 15th out of 34 teams in the state championships.
A dozen SKA athletes combined to score 185 points over the four-day Hawai‘i State Short Course Championship held in Kona, Dec. 18-21, states an SKA release.
Billy Brown, head coach for SKA, was ecstatic over his team’s achievements, describing the swimmers’ performance as “shock and awe.”
Overall, SKA swimmers attained 73 out of 88 personal best times in their events.
Anya Littlefield earned the team’s first Sectional time standard in the 1650-yard and 1000-yard Freestyle events. Littlefield finished in the Top 8 in the state and in all of the eight events she competed in. She will be representing SKA at the Sectional Meet coming up in March in Seattle, Wash.
Bryson Baligad, 12, finished second in the state in the 50-yard Backstroke and fourth in the 100-yard Backstroke and 200-yard Individual Medley. Those results put him in the Top 8 in the state in seven of his eight events in the Boys 11-12 division.
Ware was joined by Kate Machorek, Jazmyn Ibaan-Carvalho and Maliana Kaui in the Girls 11-12 200-yard Medley Relay Team which missed gold by just a half second in what SKA officials described as the most exciting relay of the meet. The team finished with bronze medals in that event. The team placed fifth in the 200-yard Freestyle Relay, seventh in the 400-yard Freestyle Relay, and seventh in the 400-yard Medley Relay.
Baligad was joined by Ka‘eo Kruse, Erik Safford and Justin White to form the Boys 11-12 relay team which placed sixth in the 200-yard Medley Relay, seventh in the 400-yard Freestyle Relay and seventh in the 200-yard Freestyle Relay.
Emma Rausch, 16, finished third in the 200-yard Backstroke and fifth in the 100-yard Backstroke for the Girls 15-16 division. Kate Machorek, 12, earned a seventh place in the 100-yard Backstroke and eighth in the 100-yard Butterfly for the Girls 11-12 division.
Jack Machorek, 9, the youngest swimmer of the SKA team, finished seventh in the 100-yard Breaststroke and eighth in the 200-yard Freestyle in the Boys 10 and Under division.
Sophie Britzmann, 14, attained personal best times in the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke events.
Brown said he was proud of all his swimmers who trained so hard for this event, survived extreme weather conditions on Sunday when the meet was temporarily shut down by the inclement weather. All of this while having a blast and swimming incredibly fast, the release states.
SKA swimmers are on break until Jan. 4 when they start training for the first SKA meet of 2010 on Jan. 18 at the Kaua‘i YMCA pool in Puhi.
