By Elise Tran, Staff Writer
Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) strongly finished the last swim meet before Sunset League preliminaries against Los Alamitos High School. The girls varsity swim team soared past the Griffins with a score of 94-76 making this year’s team the first time in more than 20 years to go into league finals undefeated. The boys varsity swim team fought hard, but missed the win by only two points with a score of 86-84.
Both boys and girls varsity ignited a strong start for the meet. In the first varsity event, girls 200 medley relay, Carly Perri (‘17) prepped the rest of the team for a steady lead throughout the race in lane three. Hannah Farrow (‘19), Shayla Erickson (‘18) and Kennedy Hood (‘17) all carried their weight resulting in a victorious outcome with a time of 1:50.54. Close behind was Cassie Koger (‘18), Abigail Nelson (‘18), Katelyn Dang (‘20) and Monet Favreau (‘17) who finished with a time of 1:52.41 just over a second behind first.
In the boys 200 medley relay, Justin Nguyen (‘17), Long Dang (‘18), Brandon Bees (‘18) and Anthony Pham (‘17) kept a steady pace throughout the whole race maintaining the top spot earning 1:42.87. Behind, the team with Jake Huynen (‘18), Jacob Reynolds (‘20), Jake Brown (‘18) and Adam Mancini (’17) were all vying for for the second spot against Los Al, but unfortunately couldn’t push ahead resulting in third.
The Barons came out on top for both boys and girls in the 200 individual medley.
In the girls event, Farrow started out strong in the butterfly and backstroke, but a LAHS swimmer caught up to her by the third stroke, breaststroke. As soon as Farrow did her open turn transitioning from breaststroke to freestyle, she sprinted to increase her lead finishing with a 2:07.62.
In the boys event, Pham exploded in the start getting a hold of a lead in backstroke. He fell behind on breaststroke and attempted to recover in freestyle. With about 25 yards left, they were neck and neck until Pham pulled ahead in the last few yards with a 2:02.92.
At the start of the 100 freestyle, FVHS swimmer Samantha Soriano (‘17) was not present. As the official blew the whistle signaling the swimmers to step up to the diving board, Soriano raced to her lane. The other competitors stepped down as the official sorted matters out with Soriano. Unfortunately, Soriano was disqualified from the race. Despite the shaky start, Favreau and Hood were able to focus on the race with Favreau getting second with a 56.10 and Hood with a 56.97.
In the boys 400 freestyle relay, Bees, Mancini and Joshua Doan (‘18) went into the race and was in second for all three legs fighting to stay in second. Anchor J. Nguyen proved his speed by catching up to the LAHS swimmer and by the last 25 yards, he was one second ahead finishing with a 3:19.46.
“I felt like they really showed up. We’ve been training really hard these last couple weeks and it showed today. I’m really excited going into [Sunset League] finals and to see what we have moving forward,” said Head Coach Kyle Naumann.
On Wednesday May 3, the FVHS swim team will compete at Golden West College at 2 p.m. for the Sunset League preliminaries.
