High School Roundup:

MISSION VIEJO — The night before one of the biggest meets for the Corona del Mar High boys’ swim team, Coach Barry O’Dea decided to split up his top 400-yard freestyle relay team.

O’Dea figured the Sea Kings would need a second and a third-place finish to beat Capistrano Valley in the final event in the Cougars’ pool Thursday. Everything fell into place. O’Dea mapped out the meet perfectly and the Sea Kings executed it for an 86-84 win in a nonleague double-dual meet, that included Loyola of Los Angeles. Capistrano Valley, the CIF Southern Section Division I defending champion, beat Loyola, 96-74, and the Cubs beat CdM, 88.6-81.3.

O’Dea split up the relay team of Jared Namba, Garrett Larson, John Kim and Blake Terry.

Larson and Namba, along with Justin Papa and Hayden Leach finished behind the Cougars. Kim and Terry, with Ari Marks and Evan Rams were third against Capistrano Valley.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s awesome; it worked out the way we thought,’ ” O’Dea said of his thoughts before the 400 free relay. “This is a big meet, the top two teams in Orange County. We knew that Capo was going to be really tough to beat.”

CdM won the 200 medley relay and the 200 free relay. Namba, Michael Liao, Kim and Matthew Berry were victorious in the 200 medley relay in 1 minute, 37.65 seconds, a CIF-automatic qualifying time. Berry, Marks, Terry and Liao touched first in the 200 free relay in 1:28.35.

Kim won the 100 butterfly in 51.12, a CIF-automatic qualifying time. He was certainly a swimmer to watch during the meet. Kim enrolled at Capistrano Valley for a day earlier this month, but transferred back to CdM because he changed his mind, he said. The transfer never completed which allowed Kim to come back to CdM, he said.

“I decided I made a mistake,” he said during a phone interview. “It just didn’t feel right wearing a different cap other than CdM’s.”

Kim was excited to beat the Cougars.

“It was special,” he said. “We were all stoked. It was kind of unbelievable.”

The Sea Kings had two more individual wins. Larson won the 200 individual medley in 1:56.59.

Liao, a senior who plans to swim and play water polo at Massachusetts Institute of Technology next year, won the 100 breaststroke in 58.46 seconds, a CIF-automatic qualifying time.

BOYS’ TRACK & FIELD

Corona del Mar 78,

Laguna Hills 48