Both the Kalani boys and Kaiser girls successfully defended their league titles at the Oahu Interscholastic Association Swimming and Diving Championships on Saturday at K. Mark Takai Veterans Memorial Aquatic Center.
The Falcons held off the Cougars by five points in the boys race, which ended with Kalani winning the 400-yard freestyle relay event and Kaiser placing third.
The Falcons edged Mililani by 1/100th of a second, with senior Khris Hokama-Decker swimming the final leg to win his fourth medal of the day and sixth in the past two years. Hokama-Decker set a meet record to win the 50 freestyle in 21.03 seconds and also won gold in the 100 butterfly and 200 freestyle relay.
Those were the only four events Kalani won. Kaiser’s Micah Ginoza won the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:39.85 and Cougars senior Jarrett Takahashi held off Kalaheo freshman Zachery West to win the 100 backstroke.
OIA West teams won six boys events for the first time since 2013. Mililani junior Kosmo Wojack had a hand in three of them, earning gold medals in the 100 breaststroke, 200 individual medley and 200 medley relay.
The Kaiser girls ran away with their 10th consecutive league crown, beating the Falcons by more than 100 points.
Seniors Mari Yasumi, Erin Patterson and Sophie Harrison, who each won three gold medals, have won a combined 27 golds in the OIA championships in their careers.
All three swam on winning 200 medley relay and 400 freestyle relay teams, and Yasumi added her third consecutive win in the 500 freestyle to give her 11 career golds.
Patterson picked up a win in the 100 backstroke to give her nine career OIA golds.
Harrison won the 200 freestyle to collect her seventh gold in two years since transferring to Kaiser from Honolulu Waldorf School and sitting out her sophomore season. The San Diego State signee, who won an ILH gold in the 100 butterfly as a freshman for Pac-Five, broke her OIA meet record in the event this year, but it wasn’t enough to win.
Leilehua junior Kaya Takashige held off Harrison to win in 55.63 seconds while Harrison swam it in 55.77. The record was Harrison’s 56.38 she swam last year.
Kaiser ended the meet setting a record in the 400 freestyle relay with a time of 3:35.79 that was more than four seconds faster than the previous mark. Sophomore Sofia Carlson joined Harrison, Yasumi and Patterson in the event.
Cougars junior Jill Chaffee won the 1-meter diving event for the third time and can pull off the career slam next year.
There were three other multiple winners on the girls side. Kalani senior Kate Fujii won the 50 freestyle, 100 freestyle and 200 freestyle relay events to give her seven career golds. Falcons junior Paulina Ruelas won the 200 individual medley and 200 freestyle relay to increase her gold-medal total to five and Takashige also won the 100 breaststroke.
