SYNCHRONIZED SWIMMING : Cincinnati Trio Strong in Prelim

Performing to the music from “Carmen,” a trio from Cincinnati won their preliminary at the U.S. Open Synchronized Swimming Championships at Irvine’s Heritage Park Aquatic Center.

Mayuko Fujiki, a high school student from Japan who has been training in the United States, won the solo preliminaries.

Susie Baker, 18, Pam Ochsner, 19, and Jenni Yuhl, 18, of the Cincinnati SynchroGators created a Spanish style in their upper body movements for the winning four-minute routine.

The winning trio scored 86.120.

Ochsner and Yuhl, formerly from the University of Cincinnati, will swim for Ohio State in the fall. Baker said she will retire from synchronized swimming when she start at Tulane in the fall.

Fujiki, 18, who posted a score of 87.480, in the solo preliminary. “I relaxed, so I did much better than in my last meet,” she said.

Fujiki, a member of the Walnut Creek Aquanuts, has trained for the past 10 months under Gail Pucci. She lives with another coach, Miyako Tanaka, a bronze medalist in the duet at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.

The top 10 trio and solo preliminary scorers will join seeded entrants in the semifinals today and Friday.

Duet preliminaries are scheduled for this morning.