While few Live Oak swimmers were able to advance past Friday’s
preliminaries in the Central Coast Section championships, coach
Mack Haines was happy with the team’s performance over the weekend
at the Stanford University aquatic complex.
By Tatiana Getty Special to the Times
While few Live Oak swimmers were able to advance past Friday’s preliminaries in the Central Coast Section championships, coach Mack Haines was happy with the team’s performance over the weekend at the Stanford University aquatic complex.
“CCS swimming is one of the top high school swim meets in the country,” said Haines, whose team finished higher than any other team in the Blossom Valley Athletic League. “The boys finished in the top 20 as a team. Overall I was very pleased with out performance.”
For the girls, only Laura Shope made it through to Saturday. Shope finished 10th in the consolation heat for the 50 freestyle with a time of 24.80 and earned seven points for the team. Liv Jensen of Palo Alto High School finished first in the finals for the event, matching the CCS record of 22.84 set by Brooke Bishop of Mountain View in 2003.
The team finished 33rd overall with only Shope’s seven points. Archbishop Mitty took the first place spot with 244 points, followed by Monta Vista swimming at 233 points and Palo Alto with 219 points.
The Live Oak boys swimmers fared slightly better, with the team competing in four events in Saturday’s finals.
Mike Wu finished eighth in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:49.49. Taylor Smith of Bellarmine College Prep took the top spot in the event and narrowly surpassed the previous CCS record of 1:38.33, with a finishing time of 1:38.28.
Wu also qualified for the 500 freestyle final and finishing seventh with a time of 4:46.76. Smith of Bellarmine also took the first place spot in this event, with a time of 4:22.37. For the second time that day, Smith shattered a CCS record. The previous record was set at 4:22.66.
“Mike Wu had a tremendous meet,” Haines said. “He finaled in two events and had a personal best on Friday to finish seventh in the 500 free on Saturday and eighth in the 200 free.”
Another Acorn swimmer, Steven Rick, finished 14th in the consolation 200 IM with a time of 2:00.43, earning the team three additional points.
Live Oak swimmers Matt Mikaelsson, Rick, Sam Cretcher and Wu finished 15th in the consolation 400 relay with a time of 3:24.38. Bellarmine took the first place spot with at time of 3:05.95.
At the end of the day, the Live Oak boys tied for 19th place with Harker School, both with a total of 30 points. Bellarmine won the team title with 401 points, followed by Palo Alto and Sacred Heart Prep in a tie for second with 194 points.
NOTE: Monte Vista Christian’s Estelle Richardson, a Morgan Hill resident, also competed in the CCS championships. The freshman placed 39th in the 200 IM at 2:20.08 and qualified for the consolation finals in the 500 freestyle by improving on her personal-best time by two seconds. In the finals, she took 16th with a time of 5:20.42.
To see the complete final results from the CCS swimming and diving preliminaries and finals, visit www.cifccs.org.
