THE PREPS : GIRLS’ SWIMMING / CIF RELAYS : Barons Put On a Show

Fountain Valley’s 4 X 50 breaststroke relay team ignited the Barons to a 230-point victory Saturday at the Southern Section girls’ relays at Belmont Plaza Pool.

Before the meet, Fountain Valley assistant coach Mike Olsberg said the girls would be going for the 2 minutes 7.32 seconds set in 1983 by Capistrano Valley. In preliminaries on Thursday, Fountain Valley’s relay team was just a second off the record.

At the start of the race Saturday, Shelly Olivadoti took an immediate lead. As Nicole Dotts and Grace Wang increased the lead, it was anchor Kristy Tjoa who just missed the record, finishing the relay in 2 minutes 7.34 seconds, just two one-hundredths off the record.

Despite missing the record, the victory seemed to inspire the team in the 4 X 50 butterfly.

Venessa Tjoi, Lindsey Ortega, Chani Seigal and Christine Motschman finished in 1:51.10, more than a second ahead of Los Alamitos. From there, the Barons kept the heat on to take second in the 4 X 100 individual medley relay, third in the 4 X 100 freestyle relay and second in the 4 X 50 medley relay and eventually finish 44 points ahead of second-place El Toro.

In the 4 X 50 medley relay, El Toro’s Katie Lowes swam a 23.35 in the anchor leg to catch Fountain Valley’s Wang and give the Chargers the victory in 1:51.48.

In the 4 X 100 individual medley relay, Capistrano Valley and Mission Viejo took the lead but the Cougars’ relay team of Jeannine Povey, Carly Cox, Carrie Dean and Tracey McCalley gradually pulled ahead to win in 4:11.74.

El Dorado won the 6 X 50 freestyle relay. Jaime Benson, Becky Laulhere, Courtney Gulledge, Grace Jo, Stacy Rosenberg and Nancy Jo finished more than two seconds faster than their preliminary time, wining in 2:32.51. The Hawks also won the 4 X 100 freestyle relay in 3:37.92.