by Steve Phan, Staff Writer & Photographer
Barons swim went into their first home meet with a lot of pride and confidence and came out with a shining victory on all levels. The FVHS varsity swim team has now beaten Marina for many consecutive years. Also, two days before the meet, girl’s swim was placed into tenth place for the Girls Swimming Orange County Top Ten list, making girls swim a menacing challenge for Marina.
The meet started off strong for the Barons with Fountain Valley’s varsity women’s 200 medley relay taking first, second and third and varsity men 200 medley relay taking first, third and fourth.
An outstanding performance from Fountain Valley came from Cassie Koger(’18) for the varsity girls team. Koger clocked in at a time of 2:24.67 minutes, five seconds before the second place touched touched the board.
“This [meet] is an opportunity to test our relay depth on the varsity level. On the [junior varsity] and [freshman and sophomore] level, it’s a good competition,” said Mike Nichols, Head Swim Coach for Fountain Valley.
Exceptional work for the Baron’s varsity boys came from swimmers Kyle Reilly(’16) and Anthony Pham(’17). Reilly pushed a 1:51.67 minute 200 freestyle, taking first place in the event. For the men’s 100 butterfly event, Reilly gave the FV team four points by coming in second with a time of 55.29 seconds. In the men’s 500 freestyle event, Pham took first with a time of 5:05.25 minutes and personally improved by 5.84 seconds. Pham also stole first with a time of 58.93 seconds in the men’s 100 backstroke.
“It was great meet. It looks like we are going to have a solid team coming into the Sunset League Championships,” said Pham.
The Fountain Valley swim team has been practicing a lot for these upcoming meets in order to win the Sunset League Championships again after winning it last year for the first time in seven years.
“Beating marina was a culmination of gallons of sweat and weeks of agonizing pains,” said varsity swimmer Tien Dang(’17).
The Barons finished the meet off strong taking second and third for the women’s 400 freestyle relay and first and second for the men’s 400 freestyle relay.
“It was a great meet to see friends and family come out and support us. Both teams, all around had amazing swims,” said varsity swimmer Samantha Soriano (’17).
