Lin makes big splash at KIF swim qualifying

Dennis Fujimoto/ The Garden Island

Kaua‘i High School senior Talen Koerte kicks off the 200 medley relay in the backstroke at the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation qualifying swim meet at the YMCA pool on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. In addition to getting a qualifying swim in this relay event, Koerte finished with four qualifying swims at the meet.

Dennis Fujimoto / The Garden Island

Kaua‘i High School swimmer Brandon Lin powers through the Butterfly phase of the boys 200 medley relay event at the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation qualifying swim meet at the YMCA pool on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. Lin also picked up an individual qualifying swim in the 100 butterfly event.

Dennis Fujimoto / The Garden Island

Kaua‘i High School’s Kohlton Sanchez plows ahead of the Kapa‘a team during the breaststroke phase of the 200 individual medley event at the Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation qualifying swim meet at the YMCA pool on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. Sanchez also picked up an individual qualifying swim with his second place finish in the 100 breaststroke event.

LIHU‘E — Kaua‘i Interscholastic Federation swimmers earned more state qualifying swims at the KIF qualifying meet held at the YMCA of Kaua‘i pool on Saturday.

Led by Kaua‘i High School swimmer Brandon Lin, the KIF swimmers added another six qualifying swims to their state times during the final qualifying meet ahead of the Central Pacific Bank KIF Swim Championships on Saturday.

Armed with previous qualifying times, Lin, a sophomore, added two new individual qualifying swims, a new relay qualification, and improving on his two previous qualifying swims.

“One record was broken today,” said Carrie Hovland, the KIF swim meet scorekeeper. “Good job, Brandon Lin in the 100 breaststroke where Lin set a new KIF record of 58.18 seconds. The previous record of 59.21 was set by Zachary Safford during the KIF championship meet on Jan. 27, 2018.”

Lin entered the water with a previous qualifying swim of 1:01.46.

He also finished the day with qualifying swims in the 200 freestyle, the 100 butterfly where he beat fellow Red Raider Kohlton Sanchez for first finish. Both Lin and Sanchez earned qualifying swims for their respective performances in the event.

Lin also pocketed a qualifying spot for the boys 400 freestyle relay, and improved the qualifying time for the boys 200 medley relay team by two seconds with the team’s 1:43.36 finish.

“That finish in the 200 medley relay is just 0.10 second short of the KIF record of 1:43.26 set in 2018 by a Kaua‘i High School team,” said Kaua‘i High School coach Curt Colby.

Other swimmers joining Lin included Talen Koerte who shared in the relay teams’ qualifying swims and added two individual qualifying swims in the 50 freestyle and the 100 freestyle.

Sanchez added an individual qualifying swim with his second finish in the 100 breaststroke in addition to sharing the relay team qualification.

Liam Juvan finished with his qualifying swim as part of the 200 medley relay team.

The next swim event is the CPB KIF Championships on Saturday. According to the latest schedule, swimmers are in the water for warm-ups starting at 2:30 p.m. with the meet starting at 3:30 p.m. at the YMCA pool.

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