Irvine’s Depth Proves Too Much for Eagles

Despite a solid effort by Santa Margarita, Irvine’s depth determined the outcome as the Vaquero boys defended their Sea View League swimming title Friday at El Toro High.

“They’re just too deep,” Santa Margarita Coach Rick Rowland said. “Just look at the last three individual events. Irvine had four swimmers in the finals. You can’t win against depth like that.”

The Irvine boys finished with 526, followed by Santa Margarita (482) and El Toro (354) in third. Corona del Mar was fourth (334), Newport Harbor (202) fifth and Woodbridge sixth (20).

“We had some very good prelim swims Tuesday and we were able to get a lot of our guys into the finals to score points,” said Ken Dory, the Irvine boys’ coach.

In the individual events, Santa Margarita’s Philippe Demers, the USC-bound senior, set two individual meet records and was on a record-setting relay team.

Demers’ winning time in the 200 individual medley was 1 minute 52.15 seconds, which broke Irvine’s Steve Ronson’s 1996 mark of 1:53.33. Demers’ record set the mark in an event in which he normally doesn’t compete.

Demers’ other individual record came in the 100 butterfly. His time of 49.40 broke his record of 50.10, which he set last year.

Santa Margarita’s record in the 200 medley relay was also noteworthy in that its winning time of 1:38.59 broke the record held by Woodbridge by almost a second. That Woodbridge relay team included superstar Derya Buyukuncu, who now swims for Michigan. Frank Uxa, Brian Jacoby and Andrew Jensen were the other members on Santa Margarita’s relay team.

Uxa was a double winner, taking the 100 freestyle (47.46) and the 100 backstroke (52.99). Teammates Matt Martin and Matt Shipstead finished 1-2 in the 500 free with Martin finishing in 4:46.31 and Shipstead in 4:49.10.

Daniel Kim of Irvine was Irvine’s only individual winner, taking the 100 breaststroke in 59.33.

The Irvine girls won their second consecutive league title with a score of 602.5. Santa Margarita (390) was second and Corona del Mar (311.5) third. El Toro was fourth (268), Newport Harbor (252) fifth and Woodbridge (184) sixth.

The big surprise of the meet was Olympic breaststroker Amanda Beard of Irvine swimming one of her non-events, the 100 freestyle, and winning in 52.81.

“Nobody told me I had to swim this. I wanted to swim this event,” Beard said, laughing. “I probably won’t swim it at CIF, but it was fun.”

Beard also won the 100 breaststroke, in 1:03.72.

The Vaqueros won the first event, the 200 medley relay, in 1:49.20. Danielle DeAlva, Beard, Erin Zehntner and Lana Kraus made up that team. DeAlva, a senior, went on to win the 50 free and the 100 back, which was a meet record.

Another strong performer from Irvine was sophomore Morgan Hoesterey, who won the 200 IM in 2:10.43.

Dominque Rash, swimming the anchor, out-touched Lana Kraus of Irvine to give Santa Margarita a victory in the 200 freestyle relay and a new meet record of 1:42.93.

In the 200 free, sophomore Amy Murphy of Newport Harbor finished first in 1:55.82. El Toro’s Lara Reaves won the 100 fly (1:00.24) and Siobhan Herlihy of Santa Margarita won the 500 freestyle in 5:07.22.