Sailors trending up
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The record board is not safe for the Newport Harbor High girls’ swim team.
And, if last weekend’s Capistrano Valley Relays are any indication, it won’t be safe for a while.
The Sailors set all three of their school relay records in the meet. And they go into the Sunset League season, which begins Tuesday with a home meet against Marina, with momentum.
This is the most talented, the most stocked with club swimmers team that Coach Brian Melstrom has had in his nine years at the helm. Newport Harbor looks to contend and possibly even win the league, and swimmers like sophomores Ayla and Zoe Spitz, junior Dinny Stevens, freshman Carly Yasko and sophomore Kili Skibby will lead the way.
“We’re definitely bringing back the Newport Harbor girls’ swimming name, and we’re competing with the rest of the [Sunset League] schools, which is really exciting,” Ayla Spitz said. “No one really knew about us in the past, and now we’re really making a name for ourselves.”
The five swimmers contributed to all three school records last weekend. The most impressive swim was perhaps the 400-yard freestyle relay, where the Spitz twins, Yasko and Stevens touched in 3 minutes, 30.53 seconds. This broke a school record that had stood since 2000, one that former star Hayley Peirsol had helped to set.
The other two records from the Capo Valley Relays bettered Newport marks that the Spitzes had helped set last season. The 200 free relay record was set at 1:37.18 by Ayla and Zoe, as well as Yasko and Stevens, on the first four legs of the team’s 6x50 relay. Skibby and junior Kaela Whelan, who are water polo players not club swimmers, finished off the relay. The overall time of 2:27.91 was impressive as well for the six swimmers, finishing second.
The 200 medley relay team of Ayla Spitz, Skibby, Zoe Spitz and Yasko swam a 1:48.47, another school record that bettered the mark of the Spitz sisters, Skibby and Whelan from last year’s CIF Southern Section Division 1 finals.
Like Peirsol did back in the day, the Spitz sisters, Stevens and Yasko all swim club for Irvine Novaquatics. The talent is obvious. The twins had big seasons last year as freshmen; Ayla set the school records in the 50 and 100 free.
“It kind of motivates the rest of the girls who aren’t swimmers, like me and Kaela for example, who just do water polo,” Skibby said. “[The club swimmers] coach me as much as ‘Mel’ or [assistant] Diggy [Riley] can coach, too, because they’re in the water and they can give tips, which is helpful. So I think we’ll improve.”
Having Stevens back in the water is a great thing for the Sailors, too. She missed her sophomore year after suffering a torn labrum in her right shoulder just before the season began, before returning to swimming last October.
“It’s great to be back,” said Stevens, who specializes in the distance freestyle events. “[The Capo Valley Relays were] really exciting and a great way to start off the season. It set a good tone for the rest of the team, too. So we’re kind of going up from here, and it’ll be exciting come league and CIF to see how quickly we can go.”
Yasko is just a freshman, but is a very talented club swimmer in her own right. She said the 200 freestyle is maybe her best event. It’s early, but she’s also enjoying the team atmosphere that high school swimming provides.
“It’s a lot different,” she said. “It’s more like a team event than just an individual thing, and it’s more about your place rather than times, which is fun. You get to race people.”
That competitive nature should do good things in league for the Sailors, who have not won league since capturing a Sea View League title in 2006. There are no easy meets in the Sunset League, which boasts four teams — No. 3 Edison, No. 6 Newport Harbor, No. 7 Los Alamitos and No. 10 Fountain Valley — ranked in the Orange County top 10 by the Register.
Marina is not ranked, but was ranked No. 10 in the county in the preseason and is 3-0 heading into Tuesday’s meet.
“It’s going to be a tough one,” said Melstrom, whose team finished fifth last year at league finals. “They’ve got four or five good club swimmers. What it’s going to come down to in that meet is the other depth that you have on your team, and I think we’ve got some with Kili and Annie Rankin and Jessica Lynch and some of our young guns. I think can eek out the points we need to get a dual meet victory against Marina. I hope so.
“Our league is strong. It’s going to be a lot of people knocking people off, and it’s going to make league finals really interesting. I think we have a chance to win league, it’s just a matter of how much we can develop those middle-tier girls, if we can get a couple of JV girls to rise up and get some varsity points for us at league finals. We’ll see.”
The No. 6 ranking in the county is believed to be the highest for the Sailors in Melstrom’s tenure. They look to continue to build, after last year winning the Battle of the Bay meet against rival CdM for the first time in six years.
Right now, the Sailors just want to keep the good vibes going.
“People are going to see some of our times and start to sweat a little bit,” Stevens said with a smile.
Twitter: @mjszabo
