Girls Enjoy Record Day At Section Meet : Swimming: Rancho Bernardo girls, Poway boys win team titles.

If there had to be a final punctuation mark on the week, it would probably have to be an exclamation point.

In what was close to a mirror of last year’s record-setting championships, where five girls’ marks were set, the girls of 1992 set another five, in fact four of the five set last year--two individual, three relays--at the San Diego Section swimming meet Saturday at Mt. Carmel.

Among the newsmakers:

* San Dieguito’s Michelle Collins set new section standards in the 50-yard freestyle (23.80 seconds) and the 100-yard butterfly (56.80), breaking the records set by Alison Terry of USDHS in 1990 (100 fly) and 1991 (50 free). In both events, Collins, a sophomore, narrowly missed automatic All-American qualifying times.

* The Poway boys won their fourth consecutive team title, but the Rancho Bernardo girls stopped Poway’s three-year dominance. The second-year Bronco program--they were third here last year--won the final event of the meet with 313 points to snare the title over second-place San Dieguito (281) and third-place Poway (208).

* With Kendall Lane and Jenny Bowman returning from last year’s record-making relay, the Poway girls’ bettered their time in the 200 medley relay by .03 seconds in the first event of the day. Torrey Pines followed later in the day with a new mark in the 200 free relay (1:42.99) and Rancho Bernardo wrapped up the meet title with a victory in the 400 free relay (3:34.42), the only time of the day that was both a record and an automatic All-American qualifier.

* Laurie Kline of Rancho Bernardo was first in the 100 and 200 free events. Her victory in the 100 free was noteworthy as it was only her second attempt at the race in competition, but it was her victory over San Dieguito’s Kari Lyderson in the 200 that will be remembered. Lyderson, the 500 free winner, was half expected to break marks in both events.

Although there were some impressive times turned in on the boys’ side, the day belonged to the girls. Rancho Bernardo Coach Jeff Ukrainetz said the overall level of girls swimming in San Diego exceeds that of the boys.

“Relatively speaking, the women are probably better the the guys,” he said. “I’m not sure why that is, they have the same coaches. Part of it is there are just more guys swimming (in other areas of Southern California) then there are down here.”

Ukrainetz said his girls, all of whom improved their times Saturday, pulled out the team victory by “swimming out of their heads . . . I’ve been blessed with the ability to inspire them to swim fast.”

Collins got her inspiration from the fact that she didn’t get them last year.

“I wasn’t able to get (the records) last year. It took me two years,” Collins said, and added that after swimming against Terry over the years, she felt the records were within her reach.

“I thought they were beatable,” she said. “I swam against her a lot, and she beat me in the 50 last year. Last year, I was happy with my times, but I wanted to come back and get (the records) this year.”

Aside from individual double-event winners Mitch Kohlbecker of Valhalla, Cory Sinclair of Poway and Alex Krimm of La Jolla, the boys’ competition might well be remembered for the events where the apparent winners of some of the day’s best racing were disqualified.

In the 200 free relay Vista, which had set a new section record during Thursday’s preliminaries and was on pace to better that mark, was disqualified for a false start, giving Mt. Carmel the victory.

Then in the 400 free relay, after the anchor leg brought La Jolla from third place into the lead, the Vikings were disqualified after a teammate jumped into the pool to celebrate with the swimmer before his hand touched the wall. But it was a bit of redemption for Vista, as the Panthers were then awarded first.