LIHUE — Kauai High School set the standard high Saturday during the Kauai Interscholastic Federation championship swim meet at the YMCA pool, setting five new KIF championship meet records, and two KIF records.
“This might be our best year yet,” said Kelcy Tanaka, the Red Raiders coach. “We have a lot of strong swimmers who have been working hard.”
The Red Raider men, including seniors Zachary Safford who set two new KIF records, and Jack Machorek, who broke two KIF records, led the charge by the Kauai boys who finished with 97 points over Island School who ended with 55 points, and Kapaa with 37 points.
Kauai women swimmers collected 91 points followed by Kapaa collecting 70 points, and Island School women ended with 45 points.
Machorek and Zachary Safford were part of the Kauai boys 400-yard freestyle relay team, including Luke Roberts and Dutch Fairbanks, who went on to break a KIF meet record after touching the wall at 3 minutes, 27.48 seconds. The Raider foursome had earlier established the KIF standard during the Jan. 13 meet at 3:20.06.
Zachary, whose sister Julia, a sophomore, picked up her share of state-qualifying swims, broke the minute mark in the 100 breaststroke (59.21) and the 100 butterfly (51.55) in setting his new KIF records.
Machorek — who has accepted an appointment to West Point where he will join his sister Kate in swimming — made his mark early by setting the 1:57.31 meet record in the 200 individual medley. The performance was not his best in the season as he came up short on his best 1:55.78 set the week before.
His second KIF meet record swim came in the 500 freestyle (4:45.42), where he tried to better his prior 4:42.16 swim set on Dec. 23.
According to the Hawaii Swimming website, the KIF championship finishes put Machorek and Zachary Safford in a four-way tie for the leading boys swimmers, the Kauai High swimmers being joined by Henry Scherer and Jackson Evans from Island School.
The top girl swimmers is a three-way tie between Alana Cayabyab and Hayley Kaeo of Kauai High and Maddie Hoesel of Kapaa High, each of whom got 12 points. That was just two points ahead of the two-way tie for second place shared by Kauai swimmer Malia Splittstoesser and Island School’s Grianna DeTrolio.
All of the schools also finished with an armful of state qualifying boys and girls swimmers.
The first three finishers of the girls 200 medley relay qualifyed with state swims. Kaira Ka‘aihue, Julia Safford, Cayabyab and Kelli Okayama pushed the Red Raider girls to a first finish (2:03.11) challenged by Kapaa High’s Asha McGinnis, Jordan Fleming, Chloe Zumwalt and Juliana Tampus touching at 2:05.19.
Island School’s team of Haley Morey-Moen, Olivia Lutkevich, Athena Alexander and DeTrolio also earned state eligibility with its third finish at 2:06.87.
Kapaa sophomore Maddie Hoesel made her mark as an individualist state qualifier by taking first in the 200 freestyle (2:02.74), surpassing the state mark by nearly four seconds, and Kauai freshman Cayabyab added to her individual qualifying mark with a first finish in the 200 IM (2:23.62) by just over a second.
Red Raider freshman Hayley Kaeo continued to splash for Kauai, taking first in the 50 freestyle with a qualifying 25.71 over Voyager DeTrolio whose runner-up swim (26.64) was less than .2 second off the qualifying mark.
The K. Mark Takai Hawaii High School Athletic Association swimming and diving championships will be Feb. 9 and 10 at the Kihei Aquatic Center on Maui.
KIF championship meet records
Jack Machorek (boys 200 IM – 1:57.31)
Zachary Safford (boys 100 buterfly – 51.55)
Jack Machorek (boys 500 freestyle – 4:45.42)
Zachary Safford (boys 100 breaststroke – 59.21)
KauHS boys 400 freestyle relay – (3:27.48)
KIF records
Zachary Safford (boys 100 butterfly – 51.55)
Zachary Safford (boys 100 breaststroke – 59.21)
