Several of our swimmers competed at either D1 or D2 High School Valley Championships last month. So many of our swimmers competed, combined with the complication that USS numbers are not necessarily submitted, that I am sure names will be omitted in the following recognition. Nevertheless, here are highlights for a few of our swimmers.
Our highest place finish at D1 Championships came from senior Thomas Brown who competed for El Diamante. Thomas finished 3rd in the 50 freestyle with a time of 21.76 (21.67 at prelims). He was one of four TNT swimmers who made it to the championship final heat (top 8) in both individual events. The 48.03 he swam in finals for the 100 free was over three-tenths faster than his prelim swim, and was good enough for a 6th place finish. Sophomore Cori Hoover of Redwood was another double championship finalist who finished 5th in the 100 free (55.45) and 7th in the 200 IM (2:20.08 in finals and 2:18.36 in prelims). Sophomore Colin Landweer of Lemoore High finished right behind Thomas Brown in the 50 free (22.08 in finals and 21.65 in prelims) for a 4th place finish, and also finished 7th in the 100 free (48.38 in finals and 47.98 in prelims). Our final dual championship finalist was Matlyn Morris of Porterville High who finished 6th in the 50 free (25.31) and 8th in the 100 free (56.13 in finals and 56.09 in prelims). Junior Redwood swimmer Tenney Rizzo was our final top-8 finisher who swam to a 4th place finish in the 100 butterfly (59.79) event.
Taylor Shaw of Lemoore High earned a second swim during her freshman year in the 200 IM (2:22.24) with a 14th place finish, and teammate Cameron Weas finished 16th in the 100 fly (57.78 in finals and 57.16 in prelims).
Other qualifiers for D1 Valley included Bryan Brown of El Diamante (17th in the 100 back with a 59.42), Megan Nino of El Diamante who finished 24th in the 200 IM (2:30.37), and 24th in the 100 back (1:08.73), and Jessica Prestridge of El Diamante who finished 27th in the 100 free (1:00.53) and 31st in the 50 free (27.51).