The Eagles took the Class 5-A championship Saturday at Brigham Young with 356 points. Kearns followed with 277 points, and Brighton was third with 257.

"We had to crank it up and defend the title, and we did that," Skyline coach Joe Pereira, said. "The kids stepped up, the boys especially."

Skyline senior captain Andrew Zhang said this year's team is different than the past three seasons.

"It was kind of difficult to work through all the changes going from Rod Horton to Joe Pereira," Zhang said. "They have pretty different systems, so instead of completely relying on the coach like we most often do, we kind of had to help each other through. It's kind of what made this year unique.

"We had a lot of seniors graduate last year and that was a pretty big hit to us. We look to the seniors for leadership. With all the seniors and the coach gone, we had to step up our leadership roles for the younger generation. We pride ourselves on being unified."

Though Kearns couldn't overcome Skyline, Cougars coach Chirs Horne was pleased.

"What a great season, I am really happy," he said. "Our kids performed especially well, and this whole meet has been phenomenal. Our boys really picked it up."

Although 19 seniors graduate from Kearns' team this year, Horne, who was named 5-A coach of the year for both his boys' and girls' teams, is looking forward to rebuilding the Cougars.

Brighton's Luc Monson, who set a 5-A record in the 500-yard freestyle at 4:40.95, automatically qualified him for All-American consideration.

"I was really nervous . . . , but after the first 50 or so I thought I had [the record] and I just focused on getting the time I wanted to get," Monson said.

Monson has improved since last year and attributes part of his success to a change in how he mentally views each meet.

"In years past, I have worried more about beating certain people," he said. "That usually makes me really nervous and I don't perform as well. So today I wanted to have fun, do my best and see what times I could get."

He was also surprised to be named the swimmer of the meet.

"I heard it in the back of my mind and then I heard my name and I was like 'What? Where do I go? Do I have to do something?' '' he said. "I was not expecting it at all."