University wins both team titles at Irvine City Relays

IRVINE The city belongs to University's boys and girls swim teams.

University's No. 2 girls and No. 8 boys swept titles at the Irvine City Relay Championships on Thursday at the William Woollett Jr. Aquatics Center.

The Trojans girls varsity captured six of the seven events to help collect a winning score of 449 points.

University's boys varsity claimed four events to help the Trojans outduel Irvine, 413-391. The event combines varsity and junior varsity points.

University junior Christopher Wong blazed an automatic All-America and county-leading 100-yard butterfly with a leadoff time of 50.71 seconds.

The time paced University to victory in the 400 butterfly with a 3:37.18.

But in claiming the meet for the first time since 2006, University showed its depth. Jeff Kubit, Devin Grimalda, Daniel Brown, Wong, Coleman Pickell and Justin Chen combined to take the 300 free in 2:16.67. Wong split his fourth-leg in a sizzling 21.13.

"It's just not two or three swimmers," said University first-year coach Chris Grimalda, the older brother of Devin. "It's a team effort."

Irvine's three-time defending champion and No. 9 boys won three relays.

In winning the 400 breaststroke (4:17.03), the Vaqueros' team of Timmy Pham, Kurt Sakurada, Travis Pham and Kevin Barbrick out-dueled Northwood (4:18.02) and University (4:18.20) in one of the best races of the day. Travis Pham and Barbrick scorched 1:01.41 and 1:00.86, respectively, to close the race for Irvine.

The Vaqueros' medley relay of Mark Falz, Travis Pham, Gen Yamamoto and Kevin Barbrick touched first in 1:39.76.

University's girls claimed a sixth consecutive title in dominating fashion. The Trojans won the breaststroke by 15 seconds, the breaststroke by just over 16 seconds and the backstroke by more than 11 seconds.

"We swam pretty well," University coach Robin Jacobsen said.

Sophomore Julia Ju led off the Trojans' winning backstroke (4:04.76) and butterfly (4:03.12) relays with season-best times of 1:00.80 and 1:01.14.

Woodbridge broke up University's shutout. In the 400 free, Genevieve Bradford opened with a swift 53.15. Kaitlyn Van Peursen (57.82) and Aya Fujimura (53.65) took care of the middle race before Dayae Choi blazed a 52.34 anchor to bring the Warriors to the wall first at 3:36.96, just off the All-America consideration cut. University finished second at 3:37.96.

University's Ju, freshman Maggie Burton, senior Rosalie Thiessen and freshman Cheyenne Low took the medley relay in strong 1:51.51.