Kingsburg dominates the top sports stories in 2008, as decided by the Enterprise and Recorder sports staff. The top story of the year again goes to the success of the Kingsburg Seawolves swimming program. At the end of July, the Seawolves captured its 16th straight Central Valley Recreational Swimming League championship.

Kingsburg won the title on July 26 by a margin of just 22.5 points over the Visalia Waves at Golden West High School in Visalia. This was the closest battle for first and second place in recent years.

Head Coach Summer Thomas' squad finished the day with 2,224.5 team points, compared to 2,201 for the Waves. The Sanger Seals finished in third place with 1,181 points.

Following is a closer look at Kingsburg results by age group:

6 AND UNDER GIRLS

A second place finish by Kassidy Wilson in the 25-yard freestyle was the top finish for the Seawolves in this age group. Wilson finished second behind Tristan Avakian of the Visalia Buccaneers with a time of 20.99.

Wilson joined Bianca Valenzuela, Karlie Guerrero and Lillie Hodges on a third-place 100 freestyle relay team.

6 AND UNDER BOYS

Kingsburg won the 100 yard freestyle relay, as Drake Sheela, Wyatt Ward, Colton Vogt and Jackson Huckabay combined for a first place time of 1:35.12, over five seconds ahead of the second place Lemoore Aqua Jets.

Huckabay was also second in the 25-yard backstroke while Vogt finished third.

8 AND UNDER GIRLS

Kingsburg swimmers took first place in one relay in this age group and second in another relay. The Seawolves team of Korinne Henslee, Mary Rooney, Evan Yakligian and Faith Wilson won the 100 freestyle relay in 1:11.25. Saylor Eggman replaced Rooney on the 100-yard medley relay team, which finished second in a time of 1:27.27.

Wilson also added a second place finish in the 25-yard backstroke and a third-place finish in the 25-yard butterfly. Eggman added a third-place finish in the 25-yard breaststroke.

8 AND UNDER BOYS

Jonas Huckabay was part of four victories for Kingsburg in this age group. Huckabay won the 25 free in 15.55 and the 25 back in 20.11. In the latter race, Kingsburg took the first three places as Jacob Goodbar was second in 20.92 while Randall Quattrin was third in 20.95.

Andreas Correa joined those three to win the 100 freestyle relay and the 100 medley relay.

9-10 GIRLS

Brooke Henriksen had Kingsburg's only individual win in this age group, as she won the 25 backstroke in 17.67. Henriksen was also second in the 25 free and the 25 butterfly. Korey Dodson finished second in the 25 breaststroke and was also part of a second-place 100 medley relay team.

9-10 BOYS

Kingsburg's 100 freestyle relay team of Seth Brooks, Ethan Torosian, Joshua Burch-Konda and Jedidiah Scott took first place in a time of 58.14.

11-12 GIRLS

Kingsburg's best finish in this age group was a third place by Anna Lehrman in the 50 yard breaststroke.

11-12 BOYS

Zachary Just of Kingsburg was second in the 50 back with a time of 33.02.

13-14 GIRLS

Kingsburg finished third in the 200 freestyle relay.

13-14 BOYS

Kingsburg recorded sixth place finishes in a pair of relay events.

15-18 WOMEN

Joclyn Ford was a triple individual event winner for the Seawolves, taking first-place finishes in the 100 individual medley, 50 butterfly and 50 breaststroke. She also joined Karissa Koch, Haylee Koch and Kalyn Farrell on a first-place 200 yard medley relay team.

15-18 MEN

Erik Thiessen was another triple individual event winner for Kingsburg and was also part of two first place relay teams.

Second place honors go to Selma's Andrea Duran, who helped the United States to a silver medal in softball at the Beijing Olympics.

The USA squad was upset by Japan in the Gold Medal game after the USA had won an earlier meeting.

Third place goes to the Kingsburg High softball team, who edged Central Sequoia League rival Immanuel 1-0 for the Central Section Division IV title.

In what will be the final game on what was the Kingsburg High School softball diamond (it will soon be a parking lot), a record crowd watched an amazing game.

It seemed as if the pitcher's duel between Kingsburg's Alicia Hamlin and Immanuel's Liz Isaak might last forever. It took 41 minutes of action and 112 pitches before the first base runner of the game after a infield single off the bat of Immanuel's Stacey Elrich.

It took 101 minutes of action before Erin Mirelez's sacrifice fly scored Hamlin with the game's only run in the bottom half of the seventh.

That came after Immanuel had the bases loaded with nobody out in the top of the seventh inning. Hamlin struck out Kaylie Neufeld for the first out and then got Stephanie Ananian to hit a comebacker and Hamlin flipped it to catcher Jaiime Lopez for the force on pinch runner Jessica Reed at the plate.

Lauren Hajik hit a hard ground ball to Mirelez at third base. Mirelez made a nice play and first baseman Brooke Helm dug out the ball to retire the side and to end the threat.

Head Coach Cristal Brown expected a game like this, especially after the two teams combined for 15 runs in their third round meeting in the Central Sequoia League. "We knew coming in here that Liz was going to throw well. We did not expect to score a lot of runs off her. They are a new team with confidence. They had won three playoff games in a row (as a number nine seed, including an upset win over top seeded Wasco) and we couldn't take them for granted."

It looked as if the Lady Vikings' playoff experience was a key. The Kingsburg seniors remembered two years ago when they lost in 15 innings at Templeton. They wanted to win another Valley championship and nothing could stop them.

"Alicia was our team leader all year long," said the first-year head coach. "Like I've said before, if you could have nine Alicias, you would be great."

During the same week, Kingsburg High School won a Division IV boy's tennis title.

For the third straight year, Kingsburg High School and Immanuel High School battled for the title. Both coaches agreed that depth made a big difference in Kingsburg's 7-2 victory on May 21 at Kingsburg's Hillblom Tennis Center.

Last year, Immanuel won the title on their courts in Reedley by a 9-0 score. Back in 2006, Kingsburg defeated the Eagles 5-4 on the Viking courts. In that match, the Vikings had to win two of the three doubles matches to win the championship.

Last week, the title was already decided after Kingsburg had captured five of the six singles matches.

Immanuel's Luke Jackson was part of both Eagle wins last week, capturing the first singles match by a 6-3, 6-0 score over Kingsburg freshman Luke Gramza. Jackson combined with Lucas Zepeda to defeat James Walls and Gramza 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.

The longest tiebreaker of the match came in second doubles, as Kingsburg's Clinton Munoz and Robert Delmanowski combined for a 3-6, 6-3, 10-2 come-from-behind win over Nathan Panntaja and Tyler Huebert. In third doubles, Shane Cates and Ryan Delmanowski of Kingsburg combined for a 6-4, 6-2 win over Patrick Trinidad and Garrett Wade.

In second singles action, Kingsburg's Munoz defeated Panntaja 7-5, 6-4 while R. Delmanowski won the third singles match by a 6-2, 6-3 score over Zepeda. In fourth singles, Kingsburg's Walls got past Huebert 7-6 (7-0), 6-2 while Andrew Cornett of the Vikings downed Ben Smith 6-3, 6-2 in fifth singles. Andrew Hamada of Kingsburg won the sixth singles match by a 6-2, 6-1 score over Cody Hayhurst.

"We were just really deep this year," said Kingsburg High head coach Tom Gramza. "The guys worked hard. We played well in the wind. We played smart, strategic tennis. We worked hard on playing an all stroke game and it showed in the finals. We fought hard, we just came up a little harder and it worked."

Gramza said that he had a great group of guys. "They did it all. I'm proud of them and now we have to get ready for next year." Kingsburg's only loss of the season came against Hanford in the preseason.