At the request of University City’s Kathryn Hazle, the Centurions senior and fellow competitors marched out to Kanye West’s “Power” for the girls 200-yard individual medley at this year’s San Diego Section swim finals.
Hazle (1:58.69) proceeded to exercise plenty of power in taking nearly a second off her record from last year in the Division II meet at Granite Hills High School on Saturday.
”It gives me confidence,” said Hazle, referring to the song. “The message is to embrace your power and know what you can do.”
That theme dominated the day, which started with four swimmers already owning six records and ended with four new individual marks and two relay records. Included was the addition of a third mark by Torrey Pines junior Logan Noguchi in the boys 100 fly (47.50) in D-I.
Noguchi (48.46) also claimed a three-peat title in the 100 back but came up shy of his record (48.36) from last year.
“It’s really amazing that I have all those times,” said Noguchi, who established his other record in the 200 IM (1:48.55) last year. “They’re really fast, and they have a lot of history to them.”
In the prelims, Noguchi came within three-hundredths of a second of the fly mark (47.72) set in 2019 by Torrey Pines’ Stephan Lukashev, currently at Note Dame. In the finals, he sured it by two-hundredths of a second.
The future Princeton swimmer also led off with the backstroke on the Falcons medley relay team (1:31.91) that sured the mark (1:32.43) set by Torrey Pines in 2019. That opening event started the Falcons on the way to their eighth straight boys team title.
Another mark was set in the girls 200 relay as Torrey Pines (1:36.59) bettered the record (1:37.77) set by Eastlake in 2009.
Canyon Crest senior Andrew Ko (55.13) repeated as the 100 breast champion but missed out on breaking his record (54.53) from last year’s state meet.
Hazle beat her previous mark of 1:59.63 set in last year’s City Conference finals.
“I just focused on cleaning up the mistakes that I made in prelims (2:00.75),” said Hazle, a future Cal swimmer who later claimed a three-peat title in the 500 free (4:46.67). ”I had the confidence that I could go that time.”
Coronado senior Sam Quarles broke both of his records established in the prelims in his return to the meet after missing last season while recovering from COVID-19.
In the 200 free, Quarles (1:36.77) made significant improvement from the prelim clocking (1:37.02) that broke the old mark by a hundredth of a second. Then he improved on his previous 100 free record (43.86) with a 43.65.
“I’m super excited,” said Quarles, also bound for Cal. “It’s very important to improve because there’s always someone coming up to challenge records.”
La Jolla junior Arielle Brotman extended her streak of twin wins to three years as she moved from the 200 IM to claim the 100 fly title (53.92) and took her third straight crown in the 100 breast (1:02.53).
Double titles also went again to Sage Creek senior Keirlyn Mullica with an encore win in the 100 back (56.13) to go with her first in the 100 free (52.00).
San Marcos sophomore Cassidy Allison again claimed D-I two titles with her second in the 100 fly and another with a switch to the 200 IM (2:02.54).
Another twin winner, Bonita Vista junior Sarah Hardin defended her title in the 100 free (51.15) and prevailed in the 200 free (1:51.44).
“I had awesome from my friends and family,” Hardin said. “They got me through all of this, cheering for me.”
Classical senior Austin Lathrop won both the 100 fly (48.81) and 100 back (49.35), and Cathedral Catholic junior Ken Eckel took the 200 IM (1:52.04) and 100 breast (56.44).
Del Norte sophomore Julien Rousseau entered the title ranks with wins in the 200 free (1:39.26) and 500 free (4:28.15).
Thien is a freelance writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune.
