Punahou’s depth leads to boys swimming title

The Punahou boys swimming squad waited all meet for its championship-caliber moment. In the last possible lap of competition in the Central Oahu Regional Park pool, it was theirs.

A full length of the pool separated the Buffanblu’s 400 freestyle relay team from the competition as the dynastic ILH program won going away in that event, emblematic of their strong finish for a sixth straight team win in the HHSAA/K. Mark Takai Swimming and Diving Championships on a blustery Saturday. They topped runner-up Kamehameha, 66 to 48. Kalani was third at 21.

As usual, depth was Punahou’s defining trait and advantage. It was the Buffanblu’s 48th team title in 62 years of official competition.

“We have a lot of fast swimmers,” said Tyler Kawakami, who was followed by Noah Peters, Jason Lee and Joshua Nekoba in posting the winning free relay time of 3:09.33. “Some other teams will have one or two fast swimmers. We’ll have the whole team of four, or five. So to have that amount of depth just really helps us to pull through with the wins, overall.”

The Kamehameha 200 medley relay team anchored by Noa Copp set a competitive tone at the start of the day by shaving nearly three seconds off the meet record, besting Maryknoll’s 1:34.46 of two years ago with a 1:31.60.

“I want to thank all the swimmers before me,” Copp said. “They definitely pulled the weight as much as possible. So I just finished it with all my energy I had left. We wanted to shoot for the record, and we got it, so we’re pumped about that.”

Warriors senior Jaek Horner three-peated in the 100 breaststroke (54.52) and won the 200 individual medley (1:52.25).

Mid-Pacific senior Michael Petrides closed out his high school career with wins in the 200 (1:35.32) and 500 (4:34.18) freestyles.

“Overall, I’m really happy with how things turned out and I know next year I’ll have the experience from this year to hopefully build on top of that,” said the Cal-bound Petrides.

‘Iolani’s Ethan Buck only started diving in November. But Buck, who has a water polo background, had a strong support system in scoring 368.75. He is the son of former Punahou diver Stephanie (Soll) Buck, who won the girls state diving title for Punahou in 1987.

“I had a trampoline when I was little, so I feel like that kind of helped out for controlling myself in the air,” Buck said. “Also, my girlfriend (Isabel) was out with an injury on her leg, so she was pretty much my personal coach that whole time.”