Girls swimming: Newport relay team leads Sailors

Steve Virgen

BELMONT SHORE - Mai Tajima, Hayley Peirsol, Nicole Mackey and

Ashley Parole typified the intensity of the CIF Southern Section Division

I Swim Preliminaries Wednesday with their swim for Newport Harbor High in

the 200-yard medley relay at Belmont Plaza.

The Harbor quartet jumped from the 15th seed, entering the

preliminaries, to the No. 7 seed in Friday’s championship finals, which

begin at 4 p.m.

Newport Coach Ken LaMont flip-flopped Peirsol and Mackey. Peirsol, who

used to swim the butterfly in the medley relay, took on the breaststroke,

while Mackey gladly replaced her in the fly.

Parole’s season-best freestyle split (26.5) also helped the Sailors to

a 1:54.40, 1.16 seconds better than their seeded time.

“I’m hoping in the finals to do even better,” said Parole, the only

swimmer on the relay team who also plays for the Newport water polo team.

“It’s sort of intimidating to swim with (Tajima, Peirsol and Mackey, whom

are full-time swimmers and are also swim club teammates). But I have

gotten used to it. And it’s fun.”

LaMont said the Sailors’ 200 medley relay was one of the highlights

for Newport at the CIF Preliminaries. LaMont also noted, powerhouse

Irvine High is on pace to win the CIF meet, and the Sailors have a shot

to finish second.

Mackey led the way with the two highest finishes for the Sailors. She

qualified second in the 200 individual medley, winning her heat in

2:04.40. Kristen Caverly of San Clemente owns the top time, 2:02.56,

heading into Friday’s finals.

Mackey qualified second in the 100 fly (57.16), behind Irvine’s Flora

Kong (55.71).

“What were we seeded 12th or something like that,” Mackey said, asking

about the Sailors seed in the 200 medley relay. “I knew we could have

done better than that. I’m not surprised that we improved our time.”

“We just tried our hardest,” Tajima said. “It was a team effort

Peirsol also qualified second in the 500 free (4:49.58), trailing

Adrienne Binder (4:45.39) of San Marcos High. Peirsol also third in the

200 free (1:52.26).

“I didn’t expect my 500 free to be that fast,” Peirsol said. “But,

(Binder) is going to bust out on Friday. We’ll see what happens.”

Tajima, who finished less than a second off the pace to qualify for

the finals in the 200 free, will be in the consolation finals, seeded

ninth. She qualified fourth to advance to the championship finals in the

100 backstroke (57.95).

Tajima, Peirsol, Mackey and Parole qualified fifth in the 400 free

relay (3:36.88).