Marina Wins Final Event, Title

The Fountain Valley and Marina coaches knew it would be close.

So close that the last event of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay, would determine the Sunset League girls’ swimming title Friday at Golden West College.

“This is exactly like I imagined this meet,” Marina Coach Dave Carlson said. “However, I knew if this meet came down to the 400 free relay, I had enough confidence in our swimmers that we could win this.”

And Marina did take the title by winning the relay in 3 minutes 39.32 seconds to defeat defending league champion Fountain Valley with 304 points. The Barons finished second with 286.5 and Los Alamitos was third (221).

Two Vikings set four individual league records.

Recent Florida transfer Jamie Cail set meet records in the 100 butterfly and the 500 freestyle. Cail, 17, who two weeks ago broke Janet Evans’ 200 individual medley record at the Foothill Games, broke another swimming legend’s record in Wednesday’s prelims. Her time of 4:48.42 eclipsed Olympian Debbie Babashoff’s 1976 meet record. Friday, she went almost a second faster (4:47.48) to break the mark she set Wednesday. Her 100 fly time (57.72) was .28 faster than Lisa Hadfield’s 1987 league record.

Cail’s teammate, Kyoko Yokouchi, set records in the 200 IM (2:05.44), breaking her 1997 record by more than a second, and the 100 backstroke (58.30). Yokouchi set the record in the 100 back (58.37) Wednesday during preliminaries. Then, she broke the record set by Fountain Valley’s Laura Tucker in 1997 (58.09).

Jeannette Nieto of Esperanza was a double winner in the 50 (24.59) and 100 freestyles (53.58.).

The Marina boys’ team also won the league title with 293 points. Edison was second (287) and Los Alamitos was third (241).

Jeff Larson was a double winner for Marina, taking the 200 individual medley (1:57.23) and the 100 butterfly (52.53). Teammate Ben Halliday won the 100 free (48.68).