Sailors sizzle in preliminaries

Rick Devereux

The Sea View League preliminary meet in girls swimming was hosted by

Newport Harbor High Tuesday, and the Sailors utilized their home-pool

advantage by securing more spots in the finals than any other school.

A Sailor has the opportunity to win in every event come Friday’s

finals, also held at the Newport pool. Of the 64 slots for the

finals, 18 belong to Newport Harbor. Irvine has the second most with

14, followed by Foothill with 12.

The Tars’ top swimmer was Melissa Wheeler, who won her heat and

placed third for the finals in the 200-yard freestyle (2:02.25), as

well as finishing second in her heat and placing fourth for the

finals in the 500 freestyle (5:26.63).

Leah Robertson had a consistent day, placing fourth in the 50 and

100 free. Robertson already qualified earlier in the year for the CIF

Southern Section in both events by swimming the 50 in 25.03 and the

100 in 54.59. She swam 25.72 and 55.56, respectively, Tuesday.

Motivating swimmers to perform when they have already qualified

for the postseason could be challenging, but Newport Harbor Coach Ken

LaMont doesn’t need to use a lot of motivational speeches.

“The girls are pretty fired up right now,” LaMont said during the

meet. “Leah is a little off her times, but I have no doubt that she

will be ready for the finals.”

Kayley Oka, another Sailor headed to the CIF finals because of

previous race times in the 100 butterfly, placed fourth in the 200

individual medley (2:16.85) and fifth in the 100 fly (1:03.60).

Also grabbing championship-meet spots for the Tars were Anne

Belden (100 free, 100 backstroke), Carolyn Conway (200 free, 500

free), Jessie Ball (50 free, 100 free), Ashling Taylor (100 fly, 100

breaststroke), Kally Lucas (200 free, 500 free), Bryndis Klein (100

back) and Katie Kepner (100 breaststroke).