Monday Morning MIL: Aika Swanson, Sacha Salem battle to end of high school swimming careers
KĪHEI — In lanes 4 and 5, two longtime friendly swimming rivals shared a long hug after their final Maui Interscholastic League meet.
Maui Prep’s Sacha Salem had just touched the wall first ahead of two-time state champion Aika Swanson of Maui High School on the final leg of the 4×100-yard freestyle relay. It was the last girls event of the MIL swimming and diving championships on Saturday at Kīhei Aquatic Center.
Maui Prep entered the relay one point behind Maui High, but with the victory by 1.81 seconds, Maui Prep edged Maui High 62-59 to win the MIL girls team championship, the fourth straight for Na Pueo.
It was the end of two remarkable high school swimming careers on Maui, although both will be strong gold-medal contenders at the K. Mark Takai/HHSAA state meet on Feb. 13-14 at the Kamehameha Schools Hawai‘i pool.
“It was just, ‘good job, we made it,’ ” Swanson said of the embace. “Congrats to each other. Kind of just the final goodbye to each other for MILs.”
Salem added there were some tears.
The Maui Prep boys team also pulled out a victory in the 4×100-yard freestyle relay to come from one point behind Baldwin to win its third team championship in the last four years by a 67-64 score.
The result in that race was not in much doubt as Na Pueo won by nearly 7 seconds, 3:23.29 to 3:30.24 over the defending MIL team champion Bears.
The Swanson-Salem saga seemed destined to end at the wall, just as it did. Swanson’s split on the anchor leg was an impressive 51.9 seconds, according to her coach Reid Yamamoto, and she nearly made up a three-body-length lead that Salem entered the water with for the anchor leg.
Salem’s best events are the 200 individual medley and the 500 freestyle, the longest event on the high school docket, but she was more than game enough to hold off the hard-charging Swanson.
Earlier in the meet, Swanson won the 50 free in 24.34 seconds and the 100 free in 51.92 seconds, which was just 0.07 seconds off the all-Maui record set by Kysha Altura in 2018.
Salem easily won both of her specialties on Saturday — at last season’s high school state meet Swanson won the 500 free in 5:00.56, just 0.03 seconds in front of the second-place finisher. Salem was third in that event in 5:02.91, but has since swam a 5:00.05 at a meet on the mainland.
Salem was also second in the state 200 individual medley last year, while Swanson was second in the 200 free, an event she won in 2024, by less than half a second.
The pair of seniors plan to continue their swimming careers in college: Swanson at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif., and Salem at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa.
“I’m so very grateful and very lucky to have her as a competitor on Maui,” Swanson said of Salem. “She’s been a great, great friend, great swimmer over the years that we’ve competed against each other, however many years it’s been.”
Salem said: “Honestly, I’m thankful to have her because us two being the top two in the MIL that really shows that we’re always battling each other, especially with our colliding races, like the 200 and 500.”
Swanson added, “We definitely do make each other better when we’re in the pool together. We push each other and it’s great to have her as a competitor. That’s for sure.”
Other double individual winners on Saturday included Kamehameha Maui sophomore Cruz Storer, who won the boys 50 and 100 frees; King Kekaulike senior Xander Hurst, who won the boys 200 and 500 frees; and King Kekaulike freshman Viola Stevens, who won the girls 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke.
Storer’s time of 45.44 seconds in the 100 free broke the all-Maui record of 45.51 set by Cheyne Bloch in 2000. Storer’s 50 free time of 20.65 was just off the all-Maui record of 20.52 set by Renny Richmond in 2012. Richmond enjoyed a stellar college career at Arizona, while Bloch was a college standout at Hawai’i.
Storer has always been fast, but he had a breakout meet at the state age group championships in November 2025 when he swam a 44.66 time in the 100 free and 20.41 in the 50.
He will likely enter the state meet as a favorite in both of those races, with visions of winning two state titles: “Yeah, hopefully,” he said. “And then maybe a couple of records.”
Lindsay Masterson, the Maui Prep head coach, tipped her cap to her senior class of six girls, including Salem, MIL surfing champion Sloane Jucker, Tehya Chumley, Sadie Stafford, Layla Merrill and Finlay Royer. Maui Prep junior Halia Caiserman also won the 200 free on Saturday.
“These girls, they swim for each other,” said Masterson, a former college swimmer at UCLA. “I couldn’t think of a better way for them to go out, winning the MIL team title all four years. … Sacha is our hammer, the anchor.”
Salem teamed with Stafford, Jucker and Caiserman to win the fateful 400 free relay in 3:43.16. Swanson teamed with three freshmen — Aliesha Almiron, Oto Wada and Alexa Ventura — to finish in 3:44.97. Maui High coach Reid Yamamoto has guided the Sabers to three MIL team championships: boys and girls in 2022, and boys in 2020.
Gabby Della, a 14-year-old 8th-grader at ‘Iao Intermediate School, has been swimming with Yamamoto at Hawai’i Swim Club since the 4th grade. She moved into the top training group with Swanson about a year ago and presented a book she made at school titled “The Last Lap” to Swanson at the end of the meet on Saturday.
“We had to write an essay at school and I wrote a fan fiction, like a hero’s journey, about her,” Della said of Swanson. “We’re pretty close because we practice together every day. I’m going to miss her so much.”
“Monday Morning Maui Sports” columns appear weekly on Monday mornings with updates on local sports in the Maui Interscholastic League and elsewhere around Maui County. Please send column ideas — anything having to do with sports in Maui County — as well as results and photos to [email protected].
