Gabi Brito helps lead Santa Monica to another Southern Section division swimming title

Santa Monica's Gabi Brito wins the 100-yard butterfly in a personal-best time of 50.74 seconds at the CIF-Southern Section Division 1 finals at Mt. San Antonio College on Saturday. (Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Gabi Brito went from being annoyed to elated in the Southern Section Division 1 swim championships Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.

In her second event, the 100-yard butterfly, Brito glanced at the board, saw 51.65 seconds next to her name and thought she had missed her chance to better the 51.41 she clocked two days earlier at prelims, a mark that broke the Division 1 record of 51.53 seconds set by Santa Margarita senior Katie McLaughlin in the 2015 finals.

Moments later she found out the timers had conferred and changed her official winning time to 50.74 — nearly half a second faster than the previous best of 51.20 she set at the Speedo Sectionals in Oceanside in February.

“Well, I soft-touched and some coach told me they’d corrected it so I got a lot happier,” the Santa Monica sophomore said. “It’s a relief given that I’m not going to state so this is my last high school meet of the season.”

The event schedule gave Brito little time to recover after winning her first event, the 50-yard freestyle, in which she swam a 21.66, again lowering the personal best of 21.93 she swam at prelims, two-hundredths of a second off the meet record set by Abbey Weitzeil of Saugus in 2015.

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“I’m very surprised with the 50,” said the 15-year-old, who also won both events as a freshman and led the Vikings to the Division 2 team title. “I was confident I could go 21 again. I had more pre-race jitters than usual.”

Brito is looking forward to the Speedo Grand Challenge on May 22-24 in Irvine.

“I’m pretty pleased how both went considering I only had 15 minutes in between, but I do a lot of quick turnarounds and I know how to manage myself,” added Brito, who later anchored both freestyle relays (Santa Monica was third in the 200 in 1:35.29 and first in the 400 in 3:38.40). “I’m only 15 so who knows what I can do? I enjoy any of the 100 events. If I have a rested 100 fly, I can go faster.”