Lui finishes in top 10 at MOC

BOYS SWIMMING: Senior Ed Lui finished 10th in the state in the 100-yard breast stroke.

By: Carolyn M. Hartko
   South Brunswick High senior Ed Lui capped an outstanding high school swimming career with a top-10 finish in the 100-yard breast stroke at this year’s NJSIAA Swimming Meet of Champions. The state championships were held this past Saturday and Sunday at Gloucester County Institute of Technology in Deptford.
   The two-day meet is set up so that the races on Saturday serve as qualifiers for Sunday. The top eight finishers in each event advance to the finals, and the next eight swim a consolation race. Regardless of their times, swimmers in the consolation flights cannot receive a ranking higher than ninth.
   "Ed qualified 13th on Saturday, with a time of 1:02.16," Viking head coach John Harding said. "And Sunday he moved up to 10th in the consolation. He got second in his race with a 1:01.65. He broke his school record, and did his personal best time ever."
   Lui was a little off his game on Saturday, and that might have cost him a berth in the finals.
   "I had pretty bad turns," the Viking senior said. "I came a little too close to the walls. It cost me some time there."
   Lui was a lot smoother on Sunday, as he out-touched Scotch Plains-Fanwood’s Steve Swenson by .18 of a second to claim second place in his race. Lui’s time was actually better than the official seventh place finisher in the final flight. With the high level of competition, the Meet of Champions was a big change for Lui. The Greater Middlesex Conference champion was not used to being challenged very much this past winter, especially in the breast stroke.
   "Both races this weekend, I couldn’t really tell where everyone was, because everyone was so close to each other," Lui said. "It was just a matter of who touched the wall first."
   Appearing at the Meet of Champions can make a swimmer nervous, but Lui had the advantage of having competed in last year’s state championships.
   "It helped me to know what it was going to be like, and what was going to go on," Lui said. "It was kind of like the GMC’s, just with a lot faster people."
   Lui’s goal going into the Meet of Champions was to improve on his school record in the breaststroke, which was 1:02.16, set at the Pirate Invitational in January. This Sunday, he made it a little harder for future Vikings to erase his name from the record board with the new time of 1:01.65. This mark is one of four individual and three relay records Lui has set during his four years of swimming for SBHS."