SIS, Whispering Palms rule All Schools

Saipan International School and Whispering Palms extended their winning ways in the All Schools Swimming Championships organized by the Saipan Swim Club.

Whispering Palms topped the elementary division of the 2008 edition of the annual meet held Saturday at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool in Marpi.

Whispering Palms swimmers collected 278 points to beat seven other schools. It was the fifth straight time that Whispering Palms won the overall championship in the elementary division.

SIS finished second in the elementary division with its 167 points, followed by Saipan Community School (144), Garapan Elementary School (89), San Vicente (18), Home School (18), Eucon International School (9), and Ladera International School (6).

Points were given to each school based on how their swimmers finished in the 13 events lined up for various age groups, from 8-and-under to 18-and-under.

The SIS Geckos topped the junior high school and high school divisions, downing Saipan Community School and Marianas High School in closely fought battles for the championship.

In the junior high school, SIS earned 104 points, only 11 points more than Saipan Community’s 93. Grace Christian Academy ended in third with 30 markers, followed by Whispering Palms (18), Home School (18), and Marianas Baptist Academy (14).

The race between SIS and MHS swimmers in the high school division provided the best and closest contest in the meet with the Geckos gaining 162 points against the Dolphins’ 158. GCA was ranked third anew with 16 points and Kagman High School placed fourth with 14.

It was the third straight time that SIS prevailed in the high school and junior high school divisions of the All Schools swim meet.

SIS coach Betty Johnson and Whispering Palms’ Jeff Race attributed their teams’ successive triumphs in the meet to active participation from both their students and their parents.

“We have students who, a few weeks ago had yet to cross the 50m pool. But they really wanted to be part of the team, so they worked hard and came here in Marpi several times of the week to train. Their parents dropped them off here and patiently waited for the practices to finish. That’s commitment and active involvement in sports,” said Race adding they had more than 30 swimmers joining the 16th edition of the annual meet.

“We’ve been getting more students joining the swim team every year. They are encouraged to join the team because their parents support them,” said Johnson, who added SIS had swimmers as young as students in the kindergarten.

SIS had 29 swimmers for last weekend’s meet with veterans Cooper Graf, Sarah Johnson, Amanda Johnson, and Kai Staal leading the Geckos.

Joining them were Nuri Gutzwiller-Malakut, R.J., Taylor, and Lucas Knecht, Shane, Michael, Emily, Angelo, and Rafael Jones, Takumi Sugie, Maxi Braig, Lennosuke Suzuki, Kentaro Kitagawa, Moena Tagaki, Kaitlin and Bryce Daly, Mickey and Patrick Coleman, Jeane Bracken, James Kim, Crosby Schultz, Amber Roberts, and Annie Camacho.

Whispering Palms’ elementary and junior high school teams were composed of Neghar Ratsguiy, Clay McCullough-Stearns, Marina Kaku, Gyu Hee Kim, Quintin and Colin Ramsey, Catherine Atalig, Sally Lai, Rachel Kwon, Maile Aldrich, Meghan Yost, Sionell Igisomar, Max Hawley, James Jang, Steven Goodwin, Carsten Torgeson, Kenyon Schultz, Steven Lee, Kristina Folta, Gabrielle Race, Troy Yong, Jae Ko, Aaron lee, Christian Miller, Amber Montenegro, Suah Cho, Liza Atalig, Maile Aldrich, Tony Atalig, Harry Hill, Minori Yoshida, Phalai Frink, Nicole Arenovski, Danny Auther, Ilia Corella, Raine Klaver, Gyu Yeon Kim, Rachel Kwon, and Victoria Chentsova.