Kauai High School seniors Jack Machorek and Zach Safford found medals to lead the Kauai High School boys team to a three-way tie for sixth place at the K. Mark Takai Hawaii High School Athletic Association Swimming and Diving Championships that wrapped up Saturday afternoon at the Kihei Aquatic Center on Maui.
Machorek, a leading swimmer for the Kauai Interscholastic Federation, topped the hardware roster with a second-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle, where he touched the wall at 4 minutes, 39.89 seconds in the event finals. This was better than the preliminaries, where he finished seeded second in the event with a 4:41.24 swim.
His second appearance on the podium came with his fifth-place finish in the 200 individual medley (1:55.55), where he bettered his time in the preliminaries, after which he was seeded fourth.
Safford finished the finals with a third-place finish in the 100 butterfly (51.20), bettering his preliminary swim of 51.40, and was awarded fourth place in the 100 breaststroke (58.88), another better time than his preliminary swim of 59.27.
Those performances led the Kauai High School boys to a three-way tie for sixth place with Roosevelt and Kaiser, at 12 points apiece. Punahou swept the state championships with 67 points for the boys and 66 points for the girls.
Other performers for the KIF saw Island School’s Henry Scherer finish 22nd in the preliminaries of the 200 freestyle (12:56.41) and 22nd in the 500 freestyle (5:20.54).
Individual KIF girls saw Kauai’s Alana Cayabyab finish 24th in the 200 individual medley (2:25.63), Hayley Kaeo getting 19th in the 50 freestyle (25.61) and 19th in the 100 freestyle (57.26), and Malia Splittstoesser ending 17th in the 500 freestyle (5:37.76).
Kauai High School girls relay teams saw the Raiders finish below the Kapaa team in the 200 medley relay and the 200 freestyle relay events. Kauai rebounded to finish ahead of the Warriors in the 400 freestyle relay event.
Kapaa’s Maddie Hoesel was the female Warrior who ended with a 14th-place finish in the 100 backstroke (1:03.60).
Asha McGinnis, Jordan Fleming, Chloe Zumwalt and Juliana Tampus made up the Kapaa 200 medley relay team that finished 18th on a 2:02.80 swim over the 19th-place finish by Kauai’s team of Kaira Ka‘aihue, Julia Safford, Cayabyab and Kelli Okayama, who touched at 2:03.86.
The Kapaa team of Maddie Hoesel, Lani Ali, Lily Stokes and Tampus touched at 1:48.11 for 15th place in the 200 freestyle relay over the Kauai team of Ka‘aihue, Okayama, Cayabyab and Kaeo, who touched at 1:48.71 for 16th place.
In the 400 freestyle relay, Kauai’s team of Ka‘aihue, Splittstoesser, Julia Safford and Kaeo touched 12th at 3:55.90 over the Kapaa team of Hoesel, McGinnis, Stokes and Tampus, who ended 16th on a 4:01.09 swim.
