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Sports

Capistrano Valley's Boys Defend Swim Relays Championship, Again

Cougars outdistance Loyola, 230-196, for second year in a row to win their third consecutive Millikan Southern Section Relays title at Belmont Plaza.

The Capistrano Valley boys swim team claimed its third straight Millikan Relays crown at the 40th annual Millikan CIF Southern Section Relays on Saturday evening at the Belmont Shores Olympic Pool in Long Beach.  

Paced by victories in two of the seven events, and top-five finishes in the rest, the Cougars amassed 230 points to defeat their Division 1 rival, Loyola, for the second year in a row, by a score of 230-196. Crescenta Valley finished third with 184 points.

It was no surprise when Capistrano Valley defeated Loyola by a score of 215-182 last year, but this year was supposed to be different because the Cougars lost many swimmers off their 2010 Division 1 championship squad to graduation.

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“Wow,” Capistrano Valley coach Steve Yancey said. “I thought this was going to be the year when we really took our lumps because we are so young and lost so much from last season, but our guys were tremendous tonight and showed the rest of the competition that Capo is not going anywhere for a while.”

Capistrano Valley had posted slower times than Loyola in six of seven preliminary races on Thursday, but in Saturday's finals, the Cougars beat the field to the wall in two races, including a meet-record setting performance of 2 minutes 10.05 seconds  in the 6x50-yard freestyle by the team of senior Scott Burbach, junior Tyler Testman, junior Jonathan Carlson, sophomore Spencer DeShon, freshman Matt Chalcarz and sophomore Jack DesCombes.

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Capistrano Valley outstretched Loyola at the wall to win by .39 seconds as the Cubs posted a time of 2:10.44, which was also under the previous meet record of 2:11.04 set by Loyola last year. The Cougars' time was a full three seconds better than their qualifying time in the prelims.

“They [Loyola] had their fastest guy go second,” Descombes said. “We stayed really close to him and started to pull away in the third leg and I knew I was going to beat their guy to the wall.”

Loyola had nearly a half-second lead going into the third leg, but the Cougars closed the gap and Descombes hit the water at almost the same time as Loyola's anchor before pulling away for the victory.  

“I thought we could do 2:12 at the most,” Yancey said. “But 2:10 is unbelievable. It is really amazing how much faster these guys were today. It was just a tremendous performance and what’s even more amazing is that they are underclassmen.” 

Capistrano Valley also won the 4x50 backstroke (1:38:11) behind Chalcarz, junior Zach Ridout, junior Logan Redondo and DesCombes, who combined for a 1:38.01, the third fastest time in meet history. Loyola was disqualified during the race, thus helping to seal the Cougars' three-peat.

“I wonder if without that DQ if we still win,” Yancey said. “But I don’t think it takes away from the outstanding effort we showed tonight. I am just so proud of our guys.”

Capistrano Valley finished third in the 4x50 breaststroke (1:55.15) and 4x100 free (3:09.07), fourth in the 4x50 medley (1:41.15) and fifth in the 4x100 individual medley (3:40.59) and 4x50 butterfly (1:37.76).

Loyola's lone first-place finish was in the 4x50 breast, but it was in a meet-record time of 1:48:08. Crescenta Valley placed first in the 4x100 free (3:07.33) and 4x50 medley (1:35.47), both in meet-record times.

Corona del Mar swam away from the pack in the meet-opening 4x100 IM, winning in a time of 3:35.57. The Sea Kings team of Garrett Larson, Liam Karas, Matt Berry and John Kim trailed at the start of the third leg before Berry took control and handed the lead to Kim, who cruised to nearly a 2 1/2-second victory over runner-up Crescenta Valley.

“Our guys are pretty fired up after having all those DQ’s at the prelims,” said coach Barry O’Dea, whose Sea Kings finished fourth in the team standings with 182 points. “We’re just trying to do the best we can and make up some of the ground we lost on Thursday."

Corona del Mar also finished second in the 4x50 back (1:38.45), fourth in the 6x50 free (2:14.24), fourth in the 4x50 breast (1:55.19) and fourth in the 4x100 free (3:16.04).

Murrieta Valley won the 4x50 fly in a time of 1:35.12 followed by Irvine with its best finish of the night in a time of 1:35.90.  

“We did about how I expected we would do,” said coach Ray Wong, whose Irvine team finished fifth in the team standings with 165 points. “Gen Yamamoto had a pretty good day for us and it was nice to compete against this caliber of competition.”  

Dana Hills, which was 10th in the team standings with 66 points, finished third in the 6x50 free (2:13.37) and seventh in the 4x100 free (3:19.59). El Toro finished sixth in the 6x50 free in 2:16.26, and Aliso Niguel was seventh in the 4x50 in 2:00.06.

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