PREP SWIMMING / CIF RELAYS : This Year Foothill Is Third Behind Peninsula, Loyola

Last year, Woodbridge dominated the Southern Section boys’ relays and won the title. Saturday, the Warriors failed to place any relay teams in the finals at Belmont Plaza Pool.

Instead, Palos Verdes Peninsula won with 206 points. Loyola finished second with 164 and Foothill was third with 168 points.

Granted, Woodbridge and Mission Viejo were without their top swimmers, who were competing in Senior Nationals or preparing for Junior Nationals, but the inefficiency of both teams was obvious.

Although Peninsula won, there were moments during the seven-team relay meet when Foothill and Irvine almost sneaked in and snatched the title.

Foothill, which won the 4 x 100 freestyle relay, scored most of its points on second-, third- and fourth-place finishes in final and consolation heats.

Senior David Katz, along with Rob Arroyo, Brian Brown and James Thornton, took first in the relay, winning in 3 minutes 17.21 seconds.

For Irvine, which finished in fifth place with 160 points, junior Steve Ronson was a one-man show, anchoring two winning relay teams and swimming a second leg of second-place team.

In the 4 x 100-yard individual medley relay, with Ronson, Jeff Pack, Doug Tabbert and Eric Chen, Ronson’s anchor leg gave Irvine the victory after he overtook Erik Larson of Marina to win in 3:46.77 seconds, more than three seconds ahead of second-place Marina.

Swimming the anchor leg of the 4 x 50-yard breaststroke, Ronson took the lead at the 25-yard mark and finished in 1:54.46. Chen, Pack and Tabbert also were on this team.

Ronson, who will compete at Junior Nationals next week, said he had to swim in these events because his team was counting on him.

“At juniors, you are competing on an individual level,” said Ronson, noting that his club coach had discouraged him from competing Saturday. “But for these relays, it’s a team thing. And I really get pumped up for these events.”

In the last event of the meet--the 4 x 50 freestyle relay--Irvine took second by one 1/100th of a second, losing to Loyola, which finished in 1:41.93. Had Irvine won the race, the Vaqueros would have placed second.

Trabuco Hills’ John Malki, Dave Faulkner, Ryan Ball, Mark VanNostran, Marcel Widarto and Mike VanNostran won the 6 x 50 freestyle relay (1:15.85.).