LIHUE — Weather played havoc with the Mokihana Aquatics timed trials, but the swimmers prevailed, Sunday at the Kaua‘i High School pool. Tory Taboniar, 10, posted a perfect meet, improving in all of his seven events while capturing two first
LIHUE — Weather played havoc with the Mokihana Aquatics timed trials, but the swimmers prevailed, Sunday at the Kaua‘i High School pool.
Tory Taboniar, 10, posted a perfect meet, improving in all of his seven events while capturing two first finishes. His best event came in the 100 Backstroke where he sliced 10.24 seconds off his seeded time, touching the wall in second place on a 1:44.37 swim and nailing a HI-A time standard. His first place finishes came in the 50 Fly where he touched at 46.49, a 1.04 improvement on his seeded time and another of his three HI-A time. His other first finish was in the 50 Freestyle where he touched at 36.27, a 1.76 improvement.
Coach Orlando “O” Anaya, of the Mokihana Aquatics, said the meet originally scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, was called on Saturday due to the threat of heavy thunderstorms in the time slot when the meet was scheduled.
Sunday, the meet was delayed while volunteers pumped out water because the pool water level was too high.
“Despite all of this, our swimmers rose to the occasion,” Anaya said. “It was too much to ask of our swimmers to try and shove a two-day meet into about six hours, including lunch. But every single swimmer had at least one personal best time, some had quite a few.”
Taboniar was one of four named as swimmers of the meet during the meet.
“Our swimmer of the meet award could easily have gone to one of our 8 and Under swimmers, but Mokihana policies state that 8 and Under are not eligible for individual club awards,” Anaya said. “It could also have gone to any of a few individuals for so many ‘best times,’ but the coaches agreed the swimmer of the meet award needs to go to the ‘Four Horsemen of Mokihana’ — Luke Roberts, coming off of eight great swims at the Bill Smith Invitational on O‘ahu, Tory Taboniar, Marcus Robinson and Riley Gokan who made for some great competitive and exciting swimming.”
The four combined for 15 personal best times, not including first-time swims.
Roberts finished the meet with five personal best times in seven events, his best showing came in the 200 Freestyle where he touched first on a 2:59.40 swim, a 4.32 improvement over his seeded time.
Robinson had two best times, his best showing also coming in the 200 Free where he touched on a 2:59.98 for a 12.75 improvement on his seeded time.
Gokan, picking up swimming following his baseball season, nailed one best time in the 100 Backstroke where he touched at 1:46.50 for a nice 4.79 improvement.
Alana Cayabyab, 8, was near-perfect, nailing best times in six of seven events and getting first finishes in six of seven events, her best showing coming in the 50 Freestyle where she touched at 46.76, a 7.94 improvement.
Isabella Roberts, 8, was also near-perfect, getting best times in four of five events, her best coming in the 50 Backstroke where she touched at 1:05.15, an improvement of 10.32 seconds.
Visit www.mokihanaaquatics.com for more information.
• Dennis Fujimoto, photographer and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 253) or dfujimoto@ thegardenisland.com.
