SPMA LC Regionals Highlights

IRVINE, Calif., Aug. 7. FOREVER-young San Diego Masters swimmer Jim Eubank set one world and two new USMS national records at the Southern California Long Course Regional Championships held at UC Irvine, August 5-6.

Swimming the last event of the two-day swim fest, Eubank, 86, obliterated his own world mark in the 800 meter free by over 14 seconds with a speedy 15:24.82.

Earlier in the meet, Eubank swam the 400 meter free in a time of 7:12.16, bettering his own USMS national record of 7:20.54 he set just two weeks prior. Eubank also lowered his two-week old 200-meter free record to a 3:18.37, a whopping three seconds faster than his previous best of 3:21.84.

USMS national relay records tumbled at the hands of San Diego (SDSM) swimmers Jeni Buys, Caroline Krattli, Jackie Marr and Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen. The quartet began by shattering the women’s 160+ 400 meter free relay with quick 4:23.44, bettering the eight-year old mark of 4:37.01 set by SDSM way back in 1993. In the 400 meter medley relay, SDSM clocked a 4:56.33, slicing over four seconds off the previous best of 5:00.73.

In the team race, the Irvine Novaquatic Masters won their first Regional Championship. The team battle was extremely close between the Novas and the host team, UCI Masters with the Novas winning by just over 100 points (1,669 – 1561). San Diego Masters finished third (1,113).

"I really didn't think we would pull it off," Head Coach Michael Collins said. "We had about 8 less swimmers entered in the meet and I thought that
would be too much to overcome. We placed second at the Short Course Regionals behind San Diego who out-numbered us by about the same margin. I was hungry to take the team up to the top spot on the podium, but it often just comes down to who has the most swimmers in the meet."

"After the first event of the meet we were down by almost 100 points, so I didn't think we had much of a chance. But we gradually started pulling back points, and by the end of the first day we led by 45. Again, I wasn't sure that would be enough of a lead to hold on since we had fewer swimmers there on the second day. But pretty much everyone stayed to the end on Sunday to
swim in the final 400 Medley Relay, and we ended up increasing our lead to over 100 points by the end of the meet. That is actually a pretty small margin of victory however, as we had individuals who scored over 100 points for the team including relay participation. Basically, if we had one less swimmer, we probably wouldn't have won the meet."

Combined Team Scores

Place Points
1 Irvine Novaquatics 1,669
2 UC Irvine Masters 1,561
3 San Diego 1,113
4 Heartland 644
5 Mission Viejo 430
6 Ojai-Santa Barbara 320
7 Coast Masters 280
8 So Calif Aquatics 241
9 West Hollywood 176
10 Typical Tropical 129

Full results are now posted on the UCI Masters web site at:

www.masterswim.uci.edu

Saturday results

Sunday results

Final Team Scores

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