Disclaimer: Reese Meister is a member of the FVHS swim team.
By Reese Meister
The Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) Barons’ swim team competed in the Sunset Surf League Finals on Wednesday, April 27, and Friday, April 29. The Barons competed against Los Alamitos High School (LAHS), Corona del Mar High School (CdM) and Newport Harbor High School (NHHS).
The preliminary events (prelims) took place on Wednesday and swimmers who qualified amongst the top 12 for their event swam again in the finals on Friday. The girls took second place with 266 points, while LAHS won with 484 points. The boys placed third with 268 points behind LAHS and NHHS. Overall, FVHS placed second after LAHS.
On Friday, the girls’ relay team began the meet with a second-place finish in the 200 yard medley relay. Senior Emme Nguyen swam the backstroke leg, freshman Kaitlyn Nguyen swam breaststroke, junior Yen Dang followed with butterfly and senior Phoebe Munholland finished with freestyle. The boys’ team touched third in their event with junior Justin Chen swimming backstroke, senior Tyler Vuong doing breaststroke, junior Benjamin Pham swimming butterfly and senior Sean Kemick finishing with freestyle.
In the 200-yard freestyle, neither varsity team had competitors in the A final where swimmers compete for the top six places in their event. However, the next event was the 200-yard individual medley (IM) where Kaitlyn Nguyen won by a landslide; she finished about four seconds ahead of the competition with her time of 2:01.94. Chen and Pham then finished about one second apart in their 200 IM to earn third and fourth place in the event, respectively.
Later, Munholland touched second in the 50-yard freestyle in a close race, earning a time of 24.53. Vuong placed second in the boys’ 50-yard freestyle with 21.66, moving up from fifth place after prelims.
Dang swam in the A final of the girls’ 100-yard butterfly to earn fourth place with a time of 58.09. Pham and junior Jaden Herman earned fifth and sixth place in the boys’ event, respectively.
In the 100-yard freestyle, sophomore Reese Meister and Munholland touched only two-hundredths of a second apart in a tight race, placing third and fourth, respectively. Kemick swam the 100-yard freestyle for the boys and placed sixth.
Neither FVHS teams had swimmers in the A final of the 500-yard freestyle.
In the 200-yard freestyle relay, both the girls’ and boys’ teams placed second. The girls’ team consisted of Meister, freshman Leyna Nguyen, Kaitlyn Nguyen and Munholland; Munholland anchored the relay and nearly caught up from behind the LAHS team. The boys’ team was made up of seniors Bryce Leach and Gavin Rose, sophomore Gavin Tran and Vuong. They were also out-touched by the winning team.
While the girls didn’t have any swimmers in the A final of the 100-yard backstroke, Chen and Rose were able to place second and fifth, respectively, in the boys’ event. Chen finished with a time of 54.63, dropping almost one second from his prelims time.
Near the end of the meet, Kaitlyn Nguyen and Emme Nguyen raced in the A final of the 100-yard breaststroke. Kaitlyn Nguyen came in as the clear favorite to win after placing first by over three seconds in prelims. However, the official disqualified her during the finals swim. Emme Nguyen placed fifth with a time of 1:09.39. In the boys’ event, Vuong finished third for the Barons with a time of 59.24.
In the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay, the girls’ and boys’ teams placed third and fourth in their races. The girls’ team included Meister, Dang, freshman Jayme Finnerty and sophomore Jianna Balta. The boys’ team, made up of Chen, Pham, Leach and Kemick, finished out the meet.
The swim team will compete at CIF-SS qualifiers, their final meet of the season. They swim on Wednesday, May 4, and Friday, May 6 at the Marguerite Aquatics Complex in Mission Viejo.
