The swimmers from St. George’s are again the kings of the pool. Powered by competitive relays and record-setting individual swims, the Saints stroked their way to a 13th consecutive B.C. championship Nov. 16 at Watermania in Richmond.
They won five relays, piling up 40 points for each first place finish, and reached the top six in six different events with 25 different swimmers.
“The boys made it a baker’s dozen and did so convincingly,” said head coach Dustin Hersee.
The Saints stacked the podium in both the “B” 400 and 200 metre freestyle relays.
In the shorter sprint distance, Michael Zhang, Andrew Lai, Leo Shen and Tyler Chiu out-touched the school’s second team by nearly four seconds, winning in one minute and 55.06 seconds. The combined one-two finish delivered 76 team points.
In the longer distance almost the same team — Lai, Shen and Chiu plus Harvey Lee — raced to a 3:52.39 minute finish, almost eight seconds ahead of their second-place teammates. They again raked in 76 team points.
St. George’s also finished first and fourth in the “B” 200m medly and first and fifth in both the open 200m medly relay and the open 400m freestyle relay. They also came second and sixth in the open 200m freestyle relay.
Shen, a breastroker, won the 50m “B” event and set a new school record but his 31.41 time was .12 seconds short of a new provincial record.
Brandon De Costa, a Saints swimmer who also trains with the Richmond Rapids, came second in the open 50m backstroke in 56.52, finishing 44 seconds behind the winner from Argyle secondary. He broke his own school record in the 100m backstroke and finished third overall.
The private boys school finished with 629 team points, more than 200 points ahead of the second-place finishers from West Point Grey Academy that included male and female swimmers. WPGA had 489 combined points for second place.
York House finished 11th with 243 and Lord Byng also cracked the top 15 in 13th place with 207 points.
Lord Byng out-touched the otherwise dominant Saints to win the open 200m freestyle relay. The Grey Ghosts took gold in 1:38.17 and slowly built a slim lead with each leg to defeat St. George’s by a mere .34 seconds.
Grade 10 Eric Hamber sprinter Serena Xue won the open girls 100m breaststroke in 1:12.24, defeating her Earl Marriott opponent by nearly one second.
Elizabeth Suen of York House won the “B” 100m individual medly in 1:12.44, motoring ahead of the closest finisher by more than nine seconds.
West Point Grey Academy breaststroker Kevin Ye finished first in open 100m race in 1:05.78.
Windermere’s Gaelan Patterson finished first in the “B” 100m freestyle in 52.85, nearly three seconds ahead of the second-place contender.
