‘Iolani girls, Kamehameha boys halt Punahou’s reign

Punahou is no longer the deepest team in the pool, but the Buffanblu still have Jasmine Mau.

The sophomore standout broke two records and swam on two winning relays, but her Buffanblu still finished second to the ‘Iolani girls at Saturday’s ILH swimming and diving championships at Punahou School.

Kamehameha took the boys title behind the efforts of Kale Ai, who matched Mau with two individual wins and two relay titles. Punahou had won every girls title since 2005 and every boys title since 2006, with both teams winning by more than 20 points each time.

"Hey, we swam good, I don’t have any complaints about the way we swam," Punahou coach Jeff Meister said. "We swam great, and everyone else did, too. That’s good."

Mau began her day by swimming the 200 free in 1 minute, 50.62 seconds to break Christel Simms’ record from 2007 by nearly a second. She then bettered her own mark of 55.73 set last year in the 100-yard butterfly at 55.58. She also turned defeat into victory, swimming third for Punahou in the 200 free relay, and kept pace with her teammates for a win in the 400 free relay. For someone so accustomed to winning, finishing second in the team standings didn’t bother her much.

"We tried our best," Mau said. "We did the best we could do, and that is good enough."

She broke both individual records, despite not gearing up for the ILH, pushing her attention to a senior sectional in Seattle. She even worked out with her club team on Saturday morning, warming up for the ILH with a leisurely 3,000-yard swim that left her feeling slow. She shook off that feeling when she hit the water at Punahou.

‘Iolani’s girls won only three events to four each for Pac-Five and Punahou, but captured the team title with 73 points to Punahou’s 69. Pac-5 was third with 66. ‘Iolani’s wins came from Aja Grande in the 200 IM, Sydney Kimura in the 500 free and Taryn Okemura in the 100 back.

"They just had to believe," ‘Iolani coach Brian Lee said. "We had a lot of depth, had some injuries and illnesses, so it was a total team effort."

Punahou senior Spencer Madanay got the Buffanblu off to a big start by winning the diving event on Friday night. Madanay scored 531.70 points, breaking his own league record by 20.95 points. Anna Archibald of Pac-Five won the girls diving title with 341.55 points.

Kamehameha’s boys led the meet with six wins, scoring 84 points to Punahou’s 61. Iolani was third with 33. Kacy Johnson won two events for the Raiders, breaking his own record from 2009 in the 200 IM with a 1:53.24 clocking.

Ryan Stack won the 50 free for Kamehameha and helped in the 200 free relay victory for the Warriors. He combined with Ai to take the 400 free relay, while Ai also claimed wins in the 200 medley relay, 500 free and 200 free.

"He is an extremely gifted athlete with a work ethic you don’t see every day," Kamehameha coach Kevin Flanagan said. "He is extremely competitive; it seems like he enjoys pain."