PREP SWIMMING ROUNDUP : Fountain Valley Duplicates Victory at Foothill Games

Fountain Valley Coach Ray Bray stepped into a time warp Saturday at the Foothill High School Swim Games, traveling back one year to the same meet.

The Barons edged San Marino, 320-319, Saturday in Santa Ana, duplicating their one-point victory in the sweepstakes, the combined point total of the boys’ and girls’ teams, one year ago.

The Fountain Valley girls’ team carried the load, winning the girls’ competition with 251 points. El Toro’s girls finished in second with 193 points, and Marina was third with 166 points.

San Marino dominated the boys’ competition, finishing with 284 points. Capistrano Valley finished second with 190, and Corona del Mar placed third with 97.

“This meet has some of the best high school teams in Southern California of all the 4-A, 3-A, and 2-A divisions,” Bray said. “It’s a good precursor to the CIF (Southern Section) meet (May 9-11).”

“Last year, we finished fourth at CIF, and we plan on improving that this year,” Bray said.

If Fountain Valley is going to improve on that finish, Michelle Ham must continue her strong swimming. Ham won four first-place medals, winning the 200-yard individual medley (2:06.53) and the 100-yard breaststroke (1:06.19).

Ham also swam on the first place 200-yard medley relay team and anchored the winning 400-yard freestyle relay team.

In the 400-yard freestyle relay, Ham out-sprinted Foothill’s Laura Ellison, who won the 100-yard freestyle in 54.08 seconds, on the anchor leg of the relay.

Huntington Beach’s Tom Westcott was another standout performer, earning boys’ swimmer of the meet honors.

Westcott won the 100-yard backstroke in a meet record time of 51.22 seconds, besting his own record (set last year) by more than a second. He also won the 100-yard butterfly in a time of 52.84 seconds.

“This puts me in a good position for CIF,” Westcott said. “I know my personal best is under the (CIF) record time of 50.6, so the record is within reach.”

While Westcott called his victory in the 100-yard butterfly a fluke, his attempt to break the 50-second barrier in the 100-yard backstroke at the CIF meet will be a more serious one.

“I didn’t expect to win the fly today, and that was great,” Westcott said. “But the backstroke is my natural event, and since this is my senior year, it would be really nice to set that CIF record.”

Another double winner was El Dorado’s Greg Milton, who won the boys’ 50-yard freestyle in 21.71 seconds and the 100-yard freestyle in 47.27 seconds.

San Marino’s Natalie Norberg won girls’ swimmer of the meet honors after breaking her meet record in the 100-yard backstroke by more than a second.

Mike Mason also set a meet record in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 57.81 seconds, and won the 200-yard individual medley. Dan Kanner won the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races for San Marino.