The Pacific Coast All Stars Meet brings together some of the top age groupers from the West Coast to compete for their LSCs, and in 2015, it was Southern California Swimming that once again rose to the top.
The meet features four “all star” teams composed of 11-12s and 13-14s from four different LSCs: Southern California Swimming, Pacific Swimming, Pacific Northwest Swimming, and Oregon Swimming.
Southern California won with a total of 1150 points between boys and girls, with Pacific Swimming providing the toughest challenge at 1062 points.
Those two teams battled in the 11-12 girls, with SoCal’s Ella Ristic and Pacific’s Crystal Murphy and Lena Wang all winning three individual races apiece.
Ristic tore through the freestyle races, winning the 50 (25.19), 100 (53.97) and 200 (1:57.16). Meanwhile Murphy topped the 200 IM (2:13.70) along with both butterflys, going 26.61 in the 50 and 58.77 in the 100. Her teammate Wang took both breaststrokes (31.57 in the 50 and 1:07.47 in the 100) along with the 100 IM (1:01.35).
The 11-12 boys division was dominated by Pacific’s Andy Huang, who won 5 different events. Huang took the 500 free (4:59.46), 100 fly (54.07) and 100 back (56.41), while also sweeping the 100 and 200 IMs with a 55.56 and a 2:02.41.
In the 13-14 girls, Southern California got a big boost from Jessica Epps, who won 5 races of her own. Epps ruled the 200-yard distances, going 2:03.54 to win the 200 IM, 2:20.95 to take the 200 breast and 2:02.82 to win the 200 fly. Epps also added the 100 breast and 400 IM for good measure, going 1:06.36 and 4:26.16, respectively.
The 13-14 girls also had Oregon swimming’s top finisher, Mara Newman, who won the 100 back (56.28) and 200 back (2:02.61). In addition, one of Pacific Northwest’s event winners also came from that division, Emma Carlton, who took the 100 fly in 55.76.
Finally, in the 13-14 boys, Southern Cal’s Daniel Kim and Hunter Hitchens starred, winning three races each. Kim was the meet’s top speedster, taking the 50 free (22.05), 100 fly (51.40) and 100 back (53.71). Hitchens, on the other hand, swept through the freestyle races outside of Kim’s 50, taking the 100 (48.01), 200 (1:43.12) and 500 (4:40.78) yard distances.
That division featured Pacific Northwest’s other winner, Ivan Graham, who went 1:00.52 to take the 100 breast.
Full results are available on Meet Mobile, under “2015 Pacific Coast All-Star Meet.”
Team Scores
- Southern California – 1150
- Pacific – 1062
- Pacific Northwest – 384
- Oregon – 351
Special recognition to the Pacswim 11-12 boys relay teams. in the 200 free and 400 free relays they broke 2 pacswim records. In the 400 free they broke the record by 6 secs.
great meet thanks to the socal swim team for the competition. 11-12 pacific girls swam great and i think crystal nguyen murphy showed real competitive spirit if you look at her relay splits. nothing like swimming for your team, i am looking forward to many great meets ahead and more competition with socal.
shout out to the olympic club and coachs paul carter, chris rogers, alex cushing and alex chang.the olympic club is a great atomosphere to train and learn to swim fast.
john
Congrats SoCal for another great win. As a spectator of the meet, I have to give Pacific Swimming props because they never seemed to give in. They were down about 100 plus points after the first day, and they came out firing on the second day, winning 7 of the 8 200 freestyle relays. I also noticed that the older boys were doing their very best to encourage their teammates and trying to fire them up as much as they could. You could argue that they wanted more, but SoCal came out on top in the end.
OH MY GOSH DAD WHY
Hey Crystal, your Dad is great. Watch what I do here. “Hey Jessica, you showed good spirit too, now go finish your homework and clean your room” 🙂
You’re dad is just being supportive man
Just wanted to point out – Epps has long been in the world of swimming. She has constantly been getting National Top 10 times since she was 11 and dominated even younger than that. When she was 13 she went a 4:55 in the 400IM LCM in Federal Way to get a US Open cut as a 13 year old!
I was really amazed by Socal’s 13-14 year old Jessica Epps who showed amazing versatility by winning 5 out of her 6 events, ranging from the 100 to 400. Very impressive. Also Daniel Kim is somewhat a new name to appear. Didn’t know that Kim and Epps swam on the same club team.
No dis-respect to Mr. Hitchens, but real versatility and range was displayed by that Socal girl on day 2, winning the 100 breast, the 200 fly, then crushing the 400IM going away.
I dont understand Swimjim, “learn to work wihin their capabilities”? Can you provied an example?
I thought it kind of surprising Hitchens, who usually steals the Pac All Star boys show, got out pointed by Kim. Kim apparently broke some Nadadore records in racing Hitchens…it made for a great show.
He’s a hell of a talent and such versatile swimmer. Sometimes – not always – that progression and consistency gets sidetracked with not being tapered. I understand there are more important focused meets that Irvine Novaquatics is attending in February.
Hitchens must have a perfect mix of speed and endurance to swim a 500 Free than get right back up and perform a 100 Fly close to his life time best against Kim. +2 point difference.
Not surprised with LSC results. Too many game changers with Epps, Kim & Hitchens.
Impressive 13-14 Boys Relay A Teams by SoCal winning all of them. My first thought in looking at their relay splits times were set by boys who are young and gaining speed quicker than they can really learn to control it. As they learn to work within their capabilities, we see splits becoming more even and controlled. Congrats to those boys and SoCal!
I sense the tide will change for SoCal next year. All three of them will be in eligible for this meet. Relays will be better contested across the LSC’s.