Sailors capture four titles

Melanie Neff

With it already predetermined before the season even began that

Irvine High was going to win the CIF Southern Section Division I

girls swimming title, Newport Harbor, Santa Margarita and Villa Park

all started gearing up to race for second place.

Few gave the Sailors a chance, picking them to finish fourth like

last season, but on Friday night they proved all the critics wrong

and took home second place at Belmont Plaza.

Irvine won the meet with 295 points. Newport was second with 198

and Santa Margarita finished third with 175 and Villa Park was fourth

with 173.

“This is so satisfying,” Newport Coach Ken LaMont said. “It is a

race that more people get into since Irvine winning is a given.”

Before the event began, LaMont, as well as every other coach on

the pool deck, had the points all figured out and what their teams

needed to do to reach their goal.

The Sailors went above and beyond.

Senior Hayley Peirsol, who was sick at Wednesday’s prelims,

stepped out of her big brother’s shadow and took home two individual

titles in the 200- and 500-yard freestyles. Irvine’s Courtney Cashion

was the only other double winner for the girls.

Senior Nicole Mackey won the 200 individual medley and took second

in the 100 butterfly.

Senior Mai Tajima posted a seventh-place finish in the 100

backstroke and eighth in the 200 freestyle.

But, in the end, it all came down to the final event, the 400

freestyle relay. Newport just needed to hold their prelim seed of

second place, and they did, taking more than three seconds off their

time to finish second in 3:33.00. Mackey, Tajima, Anne Belden and

Peirsol all lowered their split times in the event to secure second

place overall. Irvine set a national public high school record in the

race in 3:24.64.

The team of Tajima, Jenna Murphy, Mackey and Peirsol opened the

finals by lowering their time in the 200 medley relay by more than a

second with a time of 1:50.13 to finish fourth.

The 200 freestyle relay also picked up crucial points, improving

on their eighth-place prelim time of 1:41.58, to finish sixth in

1:40.97. Instead of finishing with 22 points, Leah Robertson, Ashley

Parole, Belden and Murphy gave the Sailors 26 points.

Peirsol picked up three extra valuable points with her win in the

200 free, knocking off friend and rival Adrienne Binder of San

Marcos. Peirsol trailed her fellow Auburn-bound buddy by just 0.05

seconds heading into the final 50 yards, but out-touched Binder,

breaking the 1:50 barrier in 1:49.82. Binder finished in 1:50.09.

Tajima finished in 1:56.49.

“It is always like that when we swim against each other,” Peirsol

said. “I love it.”

The two faced off again in a highly-touted 500 free matchup, but

Peirsol made this one look easy, beating Binder by three seconds. The

two swam neck-and-neck for most of the race, but with 100 yards to go

Peirsol started to pull away. She took more than seven seconds off

her prelim time, finishing in 4:45.57. Binder came in at 4:48.55.

Mackey used some strategy in her IM race, and focused on her

opponents’ weakness to take home the title. Swimming against Irvine’s

Diana MacManus, the CIF record holder in the backstroke, and Villa

Park’s Ashley Depaul, a strong butterflier, Mackey focused on the

breaststroke, giving herself a four-second edge after that leg. She

won the race in 2:01.59, MacManus was second in 2:03.66.

“I just wanted to win,” Mackey said. “I know them really well and

what they do, so I used that to my advantage.”

Depaul later edged out Mackey for the butterfly title despite a

best final split by Mackey of 29.08. Depaul won in 55.29, with Mackey

clocking a 55.78.