Swimmers are November’s best

Swimmers dominated the November list of awardees after their impressive showings in the 2008 All Schools Championships at the Kan Pacific Swimming Pool in Marpi last month.

Garapan Elementary School’s Angel Marie Tan and Saipan International School’s Kai Staal were named Student Female and Male Athletes of the Month during NMASA’s meeting Thursday night at the conference room of the Gilbert C. Ada Gymnasium.

Marianas High School’s Marystar Welch and Rezne Wong were also recognized at the meeting gaining the Female and Male Athletes of the Month awards.

Tan swept the girls’ 9-and-under 50m backstroke, 50m breaststroke, 50m butterfly, and 50m freestyle swims. She set personal best times in all events.

Staal shattered two records in the boys’ 13 to 14 age group.

The 14-year-old swimmer timed in at 25.68 seconds in the 50m freestyle of the 200m medley free relay. He anchored the SIS Geckos relay team composed of James Kim, Cooper Graf and Sarah Johnson. SIS clocked 2:00.75 to finish second behind Marianas High School (1:56.36).

Staal’s 25.68 seconds broke the 26.23 seconds set by Joshua Taitano in the boys’ 13-14 age group on Dec. 9, 1995.

His new mark also surpassed the Top 16 Motivational Time in the 2005-2008 U.S. Swimming Time Standards. In the boys’ 13 to 14 age group, the highest time standard (Four As) in the 50m freestyle is 26.79 seconds.

Staal posted his second record in the boys’ 13 to 14 100m freestyle, timing in at 57.46 seconds and shattering the 13-year-old record of Taitano (Aug. 16, 1995), who clocked 57.86 seconds.

Again, Staal’s new record in the 100m freestyle exceeded the Top 16 standard time, which is 58.29 seconds. He is about three minutes away from the Top 10 standard time of 54.84 seconds.

Welch won first place in three events, namely the 100m breaststroke, 200m individual medley, and 200m freestyle relay swims. She set a new personal best time (3:79) in the 200m IM.

Wong swam in the 100m breaststroke event and broke two records, which he himself set.

The 17-year-old Wong finished the 100m breaststroke race in 1:10.62 seconds, a new CNMI National Record. The previous mark was 1:10.91, which Wong himself posted on May 30, 2008.

Wong’s time in last month’s meet was also a new mark in the boys’ 17 to 18 age group with the MHS swimmer eclipsing his own record (1:10.91).