Punahou sweeps Aki Invitational

It was only a preseason swim meet, but Punahou — led by senior Aukai Lileikis — looked to be in midseason form in the 39th annual Dorothy Aki Invitational at Kalani High School.

“They did a good job this week,” Punahou head coach Jeff Meister said. “We came and tried to swim real hard and have some fun, and they did that.”

Lileikis, who recently committed to swim collegiately at the University of California at Berkeley, dominated the competition in the meet, which concluded on Wednesday.

The invitational allowed competitors to get their feet wet before the season and while some schools are still finding out their best swimmers and looking for improvement, Punahou doesn’t need to look far to find a leader.

Lileikis won every heat he participated in over the two-day invitational, and set a personal best in the 200 yard individual medley with a meet-record time of 1:49.01, improving on his 1:50.14 set on Tuesday.

Punahou won the boys competition with 467 points, 239 ahead of second-place Kaiser.

“Aukai is a special kid,” Meister said. “He’s done a lot of great stuff for us and a lot of great stuff for swimming in Hawaii. He’s a wonderful young man.”

Lileikis’ most impressive feat of the day did not come in an individual heat, however, as he carried Punahou through the final event of the afternoon, the 400 yard freestyle relay.

Punahou was in fifth place after the first two swimmers completed their legs and looked to be approximately four seconds behind first place. It was only a preseason relay, but Lileikis was in championship form, putting Punahou back in front with what Meister said was a “43 second, 100-yard split.”

“Helping my team rack up points feels really good,” Lileikis said. “We have a really good team energy and it’s really fun to be a part of.”

When asked if he was at all afraid that his team would lose the relay, Lileikis smiled and said “for a very short, split-second.”

“I kind of just knocked it off and said ‘no, you can do this.’ I just wanted to focus on the little things, and that actually motivated me to go faster and make the race better than it should be.”

Punahou also won the girls competition with 447.50 points. Pac-Five, led by first year head coach Matthew Tanigawa, racked up 263 points to finish second.

Pac-Five was led by standout sophomore Legrand Pound, but Tanigawa seemed more pleased with the performance of his team as a whole, rather than the individual at this point of the season.

“I’m proud with the way my team swam today, there were lots of things as a first year coach that I had to learn, but it was good. It was a good experience for all of us,” Tanigawa said.