DIVISION III SWIMMING : Laguna Hills Boys Win Team Title

The long faces and teary eyes of a year ago were finally washed from the memory of every Laguna Hills swimmer.

In 1992, the Laguna Hills boys’ swim team lost the Southern Section Division 2-A team championship when it lost the final race of the meet, the 400-yard freestyle relay, by three-tenths of a second.

The Hawks weren’t interested in a repeat performance in 1992, and they didn’t give one.

In a race to the finish, Laguna Hills won the section Division III team championship Saturday at Long Beach Belmont Plaza, with a three-point victory over La Serna, which led most of the day.

“I’m speechless,” Laguna Hills Coach Rohan Taylor said. “I told our guys (Friday) night, if we pick up points here, here and here, we could do it. My hat’s off to La Serna, they came out of nowhere and swam great. But my guys responded.”

“(We) swam out of our minds,” was how Preston Hammontree described his teammates’ effort.

As they did last year, the Hawks lost their heads in the 400 free relay. Only this time, they didn’t lose the meet.

Laguna Hills trailed La Serna by 29 points and was the top-seeded relay team. A victory meant 32 points and the title--La Serna hadn’t qualified and couldn’t score.

Mark Kwok swam leadoff, Dustin Burns and Blake Corbin churned out the second and third legs and Hammontree took the anchor leg. They won easily.

Final team score: Laguna Hills 144.5, La Serna 141.5.

“This was especially sweet, because of the way we lost last year,” said Hammontree, a sophomore who won the 200 free and was second in the 500 free.

“We were pretty nervous,” Kwok said. “Anything can happen.”

The tension had been building all day. Laguna Hills was hurt by the participation of Chaffey’s Greg Dolniak, who won the 200 individual medley in near record time and won the 500 free.

“There were a few surprises,” Hammontree said. “When we saw Dolniak, Mark and I knew we were swimming for second.”

Kwok finished second to Dolniak in the 200 individual medley and tied for second with La Serna’s Michael Pyle in the 100 free.

But Laguna Hills was the beneficiary of another unexpected turn. Burns, who swam in the final relay, was listed as an alternate in the consolation finals of the 100 butterfly. But when another swimmer scratched, Burns was called down from the stands moments before the race and finished high enough to earn points.

Also key to Laguna Hills’ victory was the diving, which was contested Friday. The Hawks’ Jeff Nichols set a section record 517.15 points to win it--worth another 18 points--and teammate Tyler Maertz finished 10th.

“The diving really helped us,” Hammontree said.

As freshmen, Hammontree and Kwok were devastated to lose the team crown the way they did. The swimmers made a pact at the end of the season, that with high-profile teammates like Chad Carvin and Suichi Matsumoto gone, they would have to step up their efforts.

“Mark and I figured that if we had guys like that last year and lost , we knew we could come back as sophomores and win it,” Hammontree said. “From the moment we lost, all our energy was directed toward this.”

And all of Taylor’s energy was used up on research. All season, Taylor tried to come up with a formula for a team victory. Everything kept pointing to the final relay.

“I’ve had my best guys in it all year,” he said. “That’s the way I set it up.”

It was the Hawks’ fourth finish in the top two places in the last four years, and their first title since 1990.

“In the beginning of the season, we talked a lot about seeing it, and wanting to win CIF,” Taylor said. “We wanted to keep the dynasty going.”

In the girls’ meet, where San Luis Obispo was an easy winner, the top finish by an Orange County team was Garden Grove League champion Kennedy, which finished eighth.

Individually, Kennedy’s Wendy Martin was second in the 200 free and 500 free. Timmy Martin, also of Kennedy, swam the same events as his sister and was fourth in both.