The Lady Timberwolves won 8 events en route to scoring 97 total points over LB Wilson and Fountain Valley High School girls.   Photo courtesy of Tim Potvin, photographer.

The Timberwolves hosted a tri-meet against Fountain Valley and LB Wilson at the Northwood Aquatic Center on Tuesday, March 10, 2015.  Northwood defeated the Barons by a score of 215-125, and downed the Bruins with a decisive 224-116.

During the Irvine City Relay Championships a couple weeks ago we witnessed an incredibly deep and explosive number of Northwood title relay teams across all division levels, and they all returned today.  The Timberwolves jumped out in front beginning with the 200 medley relay, when Open boys David Chang (31.45 - back), Leon Shi (33.49 - breast), Luke Balding (30.88 - fly), and anchor Brian Fu (26.13 - free) turned in a solid 2:01.95 for the win.  LB Wilson placed second in 2:02.54.

Both Northwood JV boys Team 'A' and 'B' handed the Timberwolves a 1-2 victory in the 200 medley relay.  Northwood Team 'A' senior Kyle Pendleton was 29.83 leading off the backstroke followed by senior Kyle Charbonnet (29.62 - breast), freshman Darrel Choi (26.53 - fly), and anchor junior Ryan Lee (22.96 - free) coupled an impressive 1:48.94.  Northwood Team 'B' just barely behind provided a backstroke split from freshman Kevin Wu (30.21),  sophomore Kevin Chen (30.08 - breast), junior flyer Esteban Torres putting in a 27.23, and junior Ryan Lee providing a nice 22.96 freestyle anchor combining for a 1:51.09 second place finish.  Fountain Valley turned in third place for a 1:51.67.

All three Northwood Varsity boys' teams came out on top 1-2-3 for a triple winner in the opening 200 medley.  Some intra squad freshman grit was on display with freshman Shawn Lou (26.16) in a very tight backstroke race with senior teammate Daryl Wang (26.18), which lead to a breaststroke battle between senior William Monjay (27.53) and junior Jason Wong (29.95), but freshman Gabe Munoz (24.16) pulled Team 'B' closer in a slight deficit with the fly against senior Tyler Duong (25.31), and though the gap closed a bit, it was freshman Hunter Hitchens who blasted a sub-22 free split (21.93) to help Team 'A' win the event (1:40.93) against 'B' senior George Peabody (23.08) reaching for the wall for second (1:43.97).  It was a back and forth across splits the whole way between Northwood's Team 'C' and Fountain Valley's Team 'A'.  The Timberwolves Nick Thorson (27.06 - back), Henry Wu (29.85 - breast), Jonathan Peng (25.66 - fly), and anchor Ethan Lan (23.43 - free) touched out at the finish to earn third place (1:46.00) over Fountain Valley (1:46.16).

Individually, Northwood's Daniel Bae began the meet with a top time of 1:55.83 in the JV Boys 200 free.  LB Wilson's Jackson Driscoll was second in 1:56.62, followed by Kyle Pendleton in 1:58.06 for third.

JV Lady Timberwolves Zoe Baick's 200 free win was spectacular, finishing 2:03.06 well in front of the field by 3.06.  LB Wilson's Sarah Sheldon took second in 2:06.12, while Fountain Valley's Melissa Cruz finished third in 2:06.36.

Northwood Senior Daryl Wang would immediately hop back up onto the blocks after the 200 medley relay to win the Varsity Boys 200 freestyle in 1:46.55.  The senior was out 52.37 behind LB Wilson's Kai Pierce in 52.17, but Pierce was unable to hold that pace through the back-half placing second in 1:47.42.  Timberwolves Mack Nesbit would round out the race placing third (1:49.77).

Varsity Lady Timberwolves wasted no time winning 1-2 in the 200 IM (2:13.95 and 2:22.12, respectively).  Freshman Julia Gonik was dominant, winning the 200 IM with ease.  Teammate Alyssa Tong took second in a tight race with LB Wilson's J King, but Tong's breaststroke difference of 2.63 pulled away from King to bring the Timberwolves a second place finish.  Tong was 2:22.12 to King's third place finish of 2:24.42.

The Timberwolves amped up the power during tonight's Varsity Boys 200 IM, as they packed a 1-2 punch with William Monjay and Shayan Shaikh taking first and second place in the race.  Monjay's effort of 1:57.14 was notably the only sub-2 minute swim in this event, and demonstrated just why he's a key asset in the breaststroke splitting a 32.98.  Shaikh kept it close with LB Wilson's Chris Robertson during the front half, but took command of the back half in holding about a second margin on Robertson for the second place touch of 2:08.66.  Rounding out for third Robertson stopped the clock at 2:11.18.

Northwood JV Boys were out hot from the start winning a 1-2-3 in the 50 free.  Darrel Choi took the event, clocking a time of 24.09.  Tae in Gu secured second posting a 25.11, and Justin Pyne finished the triple win who swam a tight race against Fountain Valley's Austin Gergens to the wall at 25.60.

Northwood Senior Judson Balding got his first individual win of the meet with a 22.07 in the Varsity Boys 50 free race; another very, very close swims as Fountain Valley's Junior Josh Bernardin (22.10) closed hard to make this a photo finish (three hundreds to the wall).

Lady Timberwolves Freshman Josephine Manuel collected her first win of the evening in the Varsity 100 fly (1:01.01), LB Wilson's M. Abbott (1:02.63) out-touched for second against Northwood's Jacquelin Chen (1:04.77) taking third.

In a meet rich in stellar Northwood underclassmen it was Northwood Varsity Freshman Hunter Hitchens ripping a pretty impressive first touch in the 100 fly at 53.33 on a 3.15 margin ahead of second place Fountain Valley Kyle Reilly (56.48).  Freshman Katherine Wang locked down first in the girl's Varsity 100 free version with a 1:00.35, with Fountain Valley's Catherine Pham earning second (1:03.42).  And yet another Timberwolves freshman was Daniel Bae going out hard in the JV 100 free, holding onto a lead down the stretch for a winning finish in 52.75, but closely followed by Fountain Valley's Chad Nakagawa (53.41).

Northwood Senior Judson Balding left his mark winning the Varsity 100 free in 47.82 over Fountain Valley's Josh Bernardin (49.22).  Northwood freshman Gabe Munoz surprised the field coming from the outside lane to challenge Bernardin in 49.54 for third place.

Outside of that outstanding Girls Varsity 200 free win, Northwood's Zoe Baick had herself an outstanding meet, in winning two individual races.  Baick took the 500 free in 5:33.05 over Fountain Valley's Cassie Koger (5:34.99) and LB Wilson's V. Conti (5:37.66).

In the Varsity Boys 500 free race Northwood's Mack Nesbit won in 4:58.97 by pacing from the 150-mark to the 450-mark, splits in the narrow window between 30.52 and 30.80 to overcome both LB Wilson's Daniel Shrout (5:00.33) and Brett Kalynycz (5:00.40).

The Open Boys 200 free relay featured a back and forth battle between Northwood and Fountain Valley ultimately with Northwood (1:46.37) just out-touching Fountain Valley (1:47.20).  LB Wilson touched for third in 1:48.85.  Northwood boys contributing were David Chang (27.07), Woo Young Kim (27.17), Luke Balding (26.28), and Sriteja Sadam (25.85).

In the JV 200 free relay of 1:35.23.  The winning Northwood team of Daniel Bae (24.15), Nick O'Neill (23.79), Darrel Choi (23.81), and Ryan Lee (23.48) won the race by over two seconds.  Fountain Valley took second in 1:37.51, and Northwood Team B was 1:38.18 for third.

Northwood's fab four brought the speed last night in the Boys Varsity 200 free relay, with three of the relay members posting sub 23 splits in this race.  William Monjay (23.01), Cameron Hsieh (22.40), Hunter Hitchens (22.71) and Judson Balding (22.15) put a solid relay together in winning (1:30.27) over Fountain Valley (1:31.81) and Northwood's Team B (1:33.27).

Northwood freshman David Chang capped off a successful swim in 30.99 to top the Boys Open 50 back.  Chang went 2.90 seconds better than anyone else in this race, to really separate him.  LB Wilson's Dean Frizzell finished second in 32.09, and Fountain Valley's Benjamin Chu stopped the clock for third in 33.77.

In a relatively close JV Girls 50 back event, Northwood's Shannon Lee dominated the day in 32.62 followed by Fountain Valley's Kristen Curtiss (33.31), and Northwood teammate Teresa Tran (34.26) for third.

Northwood sophomore Kyle Pendleton completed his print sweep of the day with a 1:03.65 in the Boys JV 100 back.  He sprinted out with an aggressive front-half of 31.15 and was able to hold off the field for the victory, wit LB Wilson's Brandon Carreon placing 2nd in 1:03.87 and Northwood's Kevin Wu placing 3rd in 1:06.34.

Topping off the Boys Varsity 100 back was Northwood's freshman Shawn Lou had a strong swim out of the first split in 27.37 to win in 55.33, just fighting off a late charge from teammate Daryl Wang (55.60).  LB Wilson's Kai Pierce rounded third in 55.76.

Yiming Sun and Leon Shi rolled their way to a 1-2 finish in the Open Boys 50 breast for Northwood in 32.76 and 33.51.  LB Wilson's Wyatt Hess wound up in a battle but ran out of room touching for third in 33.70.

The top two swimmers in the JV Girls 50 breast, Northwood's Hanna Kim and Fountain Valley's Kylee Saito, had very close times on the front half, where they seem to be only tenths apart.  The two were neck-and-neck for the entire race, but it was great closing 25 from the freshman that allowed her to take the win in 38.77.  Saito took 2nd in 39.74, and behind those two, was LB Wilson's I. Lizardi in 40.22 for third.

The Boys JV 100 breast was an all Northwood affair, as Andy Tran (1:05.37), Kyle Charbonnet (1:07.66), and Michael Lee (1:09.55) added a 1-2-3 sweep.

Northwood fresh+man Julia Gonik got on the board first, taking the Girls Varsity 100 breast in 1:09.89.  She was the only girl under a 33 split.  Fountain Valley's Lauren Wong turned in a runner-up finish in 1:11.62 with LB Wilson's M. Abbott (1:12.97).

Jason Wong won the Boys Varity 100 breast for Northwood, going 28.86 to touch out teammate Henry Wu on the first split and then 1:00.04 for the win.  Wu came in at 1:03.58, and runner-up Fountain Valley's Samuel Knott in at 1:05.66.

The Northwood Boys JV team won the 400 free relay with recording a time of 3:3.07 from Daniel Bae (51.73), Jonathan Meador (53.27), Alex Ra (54.25) and anchor Nick O'Neill (51.82) thus holding off Fountain Valley's Team A by 6.57 seconds.

It's a sign that we're approaching the Milikan Relays / CIF Relays when great relay swims come to the forefront and impressive split times begin to appear as was the case with the lights out meet ending finale.  The Northwood Varsity Boys 400 free relay team combined with Daryl Wang (48.39), Cameron Hsieh (48.30), Hunter Hitchens (48.19) and Judson Balding (50.46) ran away from the rest of the field, winning by 9.21 seconds ahead of Fountain Valley (3:24.55).

                                                                 Tri-Meet Scores

                                                                                                               Men

                                                         Northwood High School 127.00   vs   43.00  LB Wilson High School

                                                   Fountain Valley High School  87.00   vs   83.00  LB Wilson High School

                                                         Northwood High School 125.00   vs   45.00  Fountain Valley High School

                                                                                                             Women

                                                         Northwood High School    97.00   vs   73.00  LB Wilson High School

                                                    Fountain Valley High School  88.00   vs   82.00  LB Wilson High School

                                                            Northwood High School 90.00   vs   80.00   Fountain Valley High School