Irvine Wins Boys’ Swim Relay Title

Irvine dominated the boys’ CIF swim relays Saturday at Belmont Plaza pool in Long Beach, winning a second consecutive championship and setting three records in the process.

“We have a very good team. Our goal going into this meet was to win and get some records,” Coach Ken Dory said.

Gonny Shimura ensured Irvine’s first record performance victory when he made up the difference on the second leg of the 4 x 100 individual medley relay to put Irvine in the lead.

Daniel Kim and Danny Natalizio finished the relay with a time of 3 minutes 33.21 seconds. Bomb Pattanasinth was the leadoff swimmer for Irvine.

“We were after the record from the start,” said Shimura, whose relay team eclipsed San Marino’s 1991 record of 3:35.24. “With the guys we had swimming tonight, we knew we would be more than 10 seconds faster than Thursday’s prelim time.”

Irvine set its second record in the 4 x 50 butterfly relay as Shimura, who led off with a 23.96 split, Bobby Lanza, Jason Hwang and Kim clocked a 1:35.55 to break Walnut’s 1991 record of 1:36.66.

The Vaqueros’ final record came in the last event, the 200 medley relay. Winning in 1:36.98, it was Kim’s blistering 25.32 breaststroke leg that made the difference for Irvine. Shimura led off the relay at backstroke, Pattanasinth swam the fly and Jessie Turi anchored on free.

The Vaqueros’ other victory was in the 4 x 50 breaststroke relay (1:55.59).

Long Beach Wilson was second (174) and Arcadia third (168).

Hart, which won two events, the 4 x 50 backstroke relay (1:38.96) and the 4 x 100 freestyle relay (3:11.84), setting a record.