Pair of Rebel seniors succeed

LONG BEACH ? Halfway through Saturday’s CIF Southern Section Division III 100-yard breaststroke final, Flintridge Prep senior Jeff Kang was halfway to a division title.

The last half proved to be his undoing, however, as the Rebel standout was bested by Temescal Canyon freshman Bart Kelly by the slimmest of margins, just .69 hundredths of a second at Long Beach’s Belmont Plaza.

“I knew going in that I had the faster first half,” said Kang, whose first half edged Kelly’s 28.53-28.69. “It’s not like I have a problem coming back, but I did lose it in the end.”

In reality, there was no problem with Kang’s race, as his time of 32.12 was a personal record and Kelly’s 31.27 was the smallest bit better.

“I can’t ask him to do anything better than that,” said Rebels Coach Whitney Mays of Kang, who’d already set a Prep League record with a time of 1:01.3 at the league finals. “He swam a lifetime best, you can’t complain about that.”

Kang’s Rebel career isn’t over just yet as he qualified for the 100 breaststroke at Tuesday’s inaugural CIF Masters Meet, which matches up the top swimmers across all divisions at the Belmont Plaza.

“I kind of wanted to win this event first before going out,” said Kang, who’s made it to the CIF finals in all four of his years at Flintridge Prep. “It’s been a good four years.

“I’m kind of sad it’s my last year, but it was good.”

Flintridge Prep senior Ashley Min will join Kang on Tuesday.

Min took third in the 50 freestyle (24.88), finishing behind Mayfield’s Ann Tsuchiya (first, 24.46) and Norco’s Nicole Frost (second, 24.51).

“I’m very proud of both of them,” said Mays of Min and Kang. “They both worked very hard.”

Kang competed in four events in all on Saturday.

He helped the Rebels’ 400 freestyle relay team ? along with Mike McDonnell, Cody Boyce and Austin Bell ? to an eight-place finish (3:28.55), took fifth (2:06.26) in the 200 individual medley consolation final and was part of a third-place finish (1:34.27) in the 200 freestyle relay consolation final with the same cast as the 400 relay team.

Min took third in the 100 freestyle consolation final in 54.78 and, along with Erin McDonnell, Jaqueline Swaidan and Sara Hollar, took sixth (2:02.29) in the 200 medley relay consolation final.

On the girls’ side, though, the day belonged to Flintridge Prep-rival Mayfield, which posted 211 team points, good enough to edge La Serna with 197 for the Division III title.

Key to the victory was Glendale resident Katie Kime.

She was part of a first-place finish (1:52.07) in the 200 medley relay, a third-place mark (3:38.35) in the 400 freestyle relay and a pair of fourth-place finishes in the 200 individual medley (2:05.84) and 100 butterfly (57.95).

Flintridge Prep’s girls’ squad tallied 32 points, which equated to a 19th-place finish.

Hollar added to Min and the relay team’s points with a sixth-place mark (2:24) in the 200 individual medley consolation final. In other consolation finals, Bell finished fourth (4:57.57) in the 500 freestyle and Mike McDonnell took sixth (1:49.49) and second (49.84) in the 200 freestyle and 100 freestyle, respectively.

Those results helped the Rebels to an 11th-place finish with 70 points. Palos Verdes won the team event with 321 points.

Said Mays: “It’s been a good day, not as good as it could’ve been, but it’s been good.”

In Division II competition,

La Ca”ada girls’ team takes 15th place: The Spartans, who qualified for only one championship heat, accumulated 62 points at Saturday’s finals at Long Beach’s Belmont Plaza.

The Spartans’ 200-yard relay team of Carolyn Boosalis, Kristin Varretto, Eunice Khang and Natasha Nguyen had La Ca”ada’s highest finish, taking seventh in 1 minute 55.42 seconds.

Senior Dana Follis joined Khang, Boosalis and Nguyen on the 400-freestyle relay team, which finished in 11th in 3:45.34.

Boosalis, a junior, had her team’s best individual finish, as she took 10th in the 100 backstroke in 1:01.00.

Nguyen had a pair of 11th-place finishes, clocking 1:56.84 in the 200 freestyle and 5:13.28 in the 500 freestyle.

Corona del Mar won the Division II girls’ competition with 248 points.