One of the most iconic national high school records is under fire, as Santa Margarita High School narrowly missed establishing a new standard in the 400-yard freestyle on Friday. Racing in the prelims at the California Interscholastic Federation Championships, the foursome of Teagan O’Dell, Teia Salvino, Macky Hodges and Justina Kozan clocked a time of 3:15.61, the No. 2 performance in high school history.
The national record belongs to Carmel High from 2015, when its star-studded lineup of Veronica Burchill, Claire Adams, Kendall Smith and Amy Bilquist produced a time of 3:15.38. Santa Margarita will have another chance at the record on Saturday during finals.
Results from prelims show differing lineup orders for the SoCal school, but Meet Mobile notes splits of 49.04, 49.41, 47.98 and 49.18. Only Kozan, who is bound for USC, is a senior for Santa Margarita, which romped to the team title at last week’s CIF-Southern Section Division I Championships. Beyond the 400 freestyle relay, Santa Margarita claimed the top seed in the 200 medley relay in 1:39.86 and topped the prelims in the 200 freestyle with a performance of 1:32.65.
O’Dell (200 IM/100 backstroke), Kozan (200 freestyle/100 butterfly) and Salvino (50 freestyle/100 freestyle) are positioned as top-two seeds in a pair of individual events for finals.