By all accounts, the water was a lot warmer on the second day of the 38th annual Dorothy Aki Invitational Swimming Meet at Kalani High School on Saturday.
Maybe the warmer temperature was a reason why records were broken eight times in the two-day event.
“It was so cold (Friday),” said Kanoa Kaleoaloha, who is $200 richer for his two-day performance in the pool.
“I made a bet with my brother, Kaleikoa,” he added. “He said he would give me $50 for every record I broke and I actually need the money.”
Kaleoaloha, a senior who has committed to swim for Florida State this fall, broke the 50- and 100-yard freestyle meet records two days in a row — in the prelims and in the final.
“Oh, that kid is a stud,” said Punahou coach Jeff Meister, whose boys and girls squads wrapped up the Aki team titles.
Kaleoaloha swam a 20.85 in the 50 freestyle to take that record in the preliminaries, then lowered it to 20.38 in the main event. He did it again in the 100 free, covering the distance in 46.09 in the prelims and reducing it to 45.62 in the finals.
Two other swimmers broke two meet records each — Buffanblu junior Aukai Lileikis in the 200 free Friday and the 500 free Saturday, and Campbell senior Makoa Alvarez in the 100 backstroke and the 100 butterfly on Saturday.
A year ago, Alvarez tied the state high school meet record in the 100 backstroke. He recently orally committed to swim for the University of Hawaii next season.
Alvarez had a time of 49.81 seconds in the 100 fly to take down Randall Tom‘s meet record of 50.78 from 2004. He was .03 off the record in the prelims.
Alvarez then took out another legend in the 100 backstroke, covering the distance in 47.81 seconds to surpass Hong Zhe Sun‘s 50.33 mark from 2002. Alvarez was .18 seconds off the mark in the prelims.
Lileikis started the record haul with a 1:38.22 in the 200 freestyle prelims, but slowed to 1:38.87 in the final. He then erased Mark Eckert‘s record from 2002 in the 500 freestyle, swimming a 4:28.15 to shatter Eckert’s 4:32.89.
“It was still fun, but I was better (Friday),” Lileikis said on Saturday about his time in the 200. “I could have taken it out there and swam harder. The middle 100 is where I could have charged harder. No matter what, I’m super happy.”
Punahou won both team titles, with the girls scoring 403 points to beat Kaiser (276) and Pac-Five (251). The Buffanblu boys scored 445 to beat ‘Iolani (264) and Kamehameha (252).
“It was a great day for us to see where we are at,” the Buffanblu’s Meister said. “We raced well and had good times, and more importantly, all of our swimmers were really aggressive. That’s what we were hoping to see.”
Punahou sophomore Katie Woo was a prime example of that work ethic. Trailing going into the last leg of the 400 freestyle relay, Woo came from way behind to pass her Mid-Pacific opponent to give the Buffanblu first place.
“Katie usually doesn’t swim in that relay, but we used her because another girl was sick,” Meister said.
Other swimmers to win two events, but come up short on records, were Mid-Pacific sophomore Maia Petrides, Punahou sophomore Maddie Balish and Kalani junior Paris James.
Here are the complete results:
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