PUHI — The Island School girls medley relay team jumped off the block to take an early lead Saturday during the Kauai Interscholastic Federation qualifying swim meet hosted by Island School at the YMCA pool. Carolyn Price and Mao Fukada
PUHI — The Island School girls medley relay team jumped off the block to take an early lead Saturday during the Kauai Interscholastic Federation qualifying swim meet hosted by Island School at the YMCA pool.
Carolyn Price and Mao Fukada did their part in securing the lead over a challenging Kapaa team, and Athena Alexander battled with Alana Tamashiro in the butterfly phase to keep the lead, Sterling Bird splashing first in the final phase of the race.
Grace Stokes did the freestyle phase for the Warriors, and in a burst of energy, touched the wall just ahead of Bird to give Kapaa a state qualifying swim at 2 minutes, 7.84 seconds, less than a second back of Island School (2:08.12). Both schools qualified for the state swim standards, and Stokes used that opening event to prime for the 100 freestyle where she finished with an individual state swim at 58.50.
Another Warrior swimmer, Pakela Panui posted his state qualifying swim in the 100 breaststroke (1:07.50) after several weeks of attempting to make the cut.
These four events were just part of 15 state qualifying swims which included three KIF record-breaking performances.
Jack Machorek of Kauai High School secured a new KIF record time with his qualifying swim in the boys 200 individual medley (2:01.20). He was also part of the boys 400 freestyle relay team which secured a KIF record swim at 3:27.61, being joined by Saber Fairbanks, Zachary Safford, and Riley Young.
Machorek rounded out the day with a qualifying swim in the 100 butterfly (55.73) where he missed the KIF record by a mere .18 second.
Safford secured a KIF record swim of his own, touching the wall at 1:04.15 in the 100 breaststroke event. He added state swims in the 100 freestyle (50.63) and the 200 IM (2:02.85).
The team of Machorek, Safford, Young and Asa Hendrickson secured a KIF record swim at the Jan. 16 qualifying meet which was not reported due to a clerical error in transposing figures.
Kauai High School swimmers rounded out its cache of eight state swims by qualifying its boys 200 freestyle relay B team (1:43.64).
Kapaa rounded out its state qualifying swims with its girls 200 freestyle relay (1:50.72) and the boys 400 freestyle relay (3:49.48).
Island School rounded out the day’s qualifiers with its girls 200 medley relay (2:08.12) and Girls 400 freestyle relay (4:15.40) teams.
The KIF swim championships will take place Saturday starting at 10 a.m. at the YMCA pool.
