Kapolei freshman, Kaiser and Iolani dominate in swimming
Advertiser Staff
It was only seven years ago that Keiko Price was being hailed as Hawai'i's best Olympic Games swimming hopeful in 20 years when she graduated from Mililani High.
Today, a freshman from Kapolei, Meredith Egloria, has sliced a full second off Price's 100-yard freestyle record for the O'ahu Interscholastic Association championship meet. Egloria busted Price's record of 53.87 seconds, set in 1995, in Friday night's qualifying heats when she covered the distance in 52.82.
In yesterday's finals, Egloria surrendered the spotlight to the Kaiser High boys and girls teams as they dominated the OIA team championships at Kalani.
Kaiser's boys set the only other meet record, 1:33.54 in the 200-yard freestyle relay by the team of Evan Duffin-Barnes, Dennis Swart, Yusuke Kobayashi and Tatsuya Kobayashi.
Those four also led the Cougars' scoring in individual events, coach Sean Barrett said. Swart and Yusuke Kobayashi are freshmen.
Kaiser amassed 207 points to win comfortably while Roosevelt edged Mililani for second place, 145 to 141. It was Kaiser's first OIA boys title since 1994.
Kaiser's girls won their second title in three years with 170 points. Daughter's team beat Dad's team for second place, with coach Peggie Tester's Kalaheo Mustangs outscoring coach Fred Tester's Kalani Falcons, 131 to 128.
Barrett said that Kaiser's divers gave the Cougars a lead before swimming races even started and, "We had swimmers in almost every event, with constant points adding up,"
EXTRA LAPS: Keiko Price never made it to the Olympics, but she won a Pac-10 100 freestyle championship and was a four-year, multiple event and Academic All-American at UCLA, where she finished with three school records, including 49.54 in the 100. ... Meredith Egloria won the 100 free yesterday in 53.26 — almost a half-second slower than her record time Friday — and also won the 100-yard backstroke in 1:01.44, less than a second off All-American consideration. ... Kalaheo sophomore Christine Phillips won the 200 and 500 freestyle races and contributed to 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay victories. ... Radford's Stella Brinich won the 200 butterfly and 200 individual medley ... Roosevelt's Jonathan Ching won the boys' 100 freestyle and 100 backstroke. ... Kapolei's Ed Afualo won the 200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke.
ILH CHAMPIONSHIPS
• Iolani sweeps: Iolani's domination of Interscholastic League of Honolulu swimming became complete yesterday.
The Raiders won both the boys' and girls' championships in their home pool.
The boys have won the title several years in a row, but the championship was the girls' first since 1998, coach Brian Lee said.
Iolani's boys, led by All-Americans Hongzhe Sun and Mark Eckert Jr., sped away from second-place Punahou, 120 to 67.
Iolani's girls trailed Punahou by two points entering the last race of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay, in which first place gets 28 points and second place 24.
Mallory Lim gave Iolani the lead on the second 100-yard leg and Sara Ajifu and Vanessa Ng protected it, breaking Punahou's meet record and the Buffanblu's string of four straight ILH championships by two points, 84-82.
"I had my best split ever (53.66)," said Ng, a senior. "This is the first time our seniors have won the league and it was our goal all season."
Iolani's time was 3 minutes, 38.35 seconds — 27/100ths of a second under the old record. The Raiders won by two body lengths.
Sun and Eckert each set one individual meet record and teamed with Pat Morrissey and Damon Jones on the 200 freestyle relay team that wiped out the old meet record by almost 5 seconds. Their time was 1:26.76.
"Punahou has four real fast guys and we knew they would come after us," said Morrissey, who swam the leadoff leg. "We knew we had to get out quick and put them away."
Morrissey gave a lead to Sun; then Eckert and Jones extended it, winning by 2.63 seconds.
Eckert said Iolani was "working through" the meet and didn't trim its workouts or shave body hair as swimmers do before they attempt to swim their fastest. Still, he broke his own meet 200 freestyle record by 1ý seconds with a time of 1:40.23.
"I had even splits (times per lap), so it was a pretty good swim for me," Eckert said. "I felt strong at the end." His best is 1:39.28, which ranked first in the nation among independent schools last year.
Sun said he met his goal of a "21 low" time in the 50 freestyle. His time of 21.43 broke the meet record of 21.52 set two years ago by Punahou's Nick Borreca, who swims for University of Florida.
"I've gone faster, but I'm working right through this," said Sun, who has signed with Stanford.
Lee, coach of both Iolani teams, said, "This was good to win, but our big meet (the state championship) is two weeks away."
EXTRA LAP: The Hawai'i High School Athletic Association championship meet will be held Feb. 28 and March 1 at University of Hawai'i. "Last chance" meets for swimmers to qualify for states will be held next week in both of O'ahu's high school leagues.
Nelson Quan contributed to this report
