Five Foothill League relay teams and six individual swimmers advanced to the CIF State Swimming and Diving Championship finals at Clovis West High School on Saturday.
Valencia’s girls 200-yard medley relay team had the best finish out of the five relay teams as the foursome of Jin Young Yi, Julia Unas, Ana Izabella Adame and Allison Cho came in fifth place with a time of one minute and 44.16 seconds for All-American auto time.
“It felt amazing. Out of this world,” Cho said via text message. “Freshman year I never would have seen myself at state, but after making top five in the relay with the girls I was so surprised and proud of us. It was Valencia’s first time going to state and we went out there and showed California that we can do it.”
Two Hart boys relay teams in the 200-yard medley relay and 400-yard freestyle relay featuring a variation of Jacob Gragas, Kyle Brill, Jonathan Quick and Dawson Waage finished in 13th and 12th place, respectively.
The Vikings 400-yard freestyle relay team (Ronit, Shrestha, Woo Young Yi, Jacob Gibbs, Dylan Parente) finished 14th in the boys 400-yard freestyle relay and 11th in the boys 200-freestyle relay.
Unas, a Valencia sophomore girls swimmer placed 13th in the girls 200-yard individual medley in 2:05.09 for a CIF State auto time.
Her Vikings counterpart, Adame, along with being part of the girls 200-yard medley relay team, had the best girls individual finish of the Foothill League swimmers, finishing third in the girls 100-yard breaststroke in 1:01.52 for All-American auto time.
“I actually really enjoyed it because, as I knew, the competition was going to be hard and challenging and I’m always up for a challenge,” Adame said. “The best part of state has to be the relay because we were kind of behind, but I wanted to make sure that we got to the podium and I wanted to make my relay proud, my mom proud, our team proud and Mrs. Rosenast proud so I pushed myself.”
Adame also came in 10th in the girls 100-yard butterfly in 55.09.
Hart boys swimmer Quick finished his Indians swimming career with two 16th-place finishes in the boys 100-yard butterfly and the boys 500-yard freestyle.
Indians teammate Waage placed 11th in the boys 50-yard freestyle and seventh in the 100-yard freestyle in 45.39 for CIF State auto time after making it into prelims as an alternate.
“He had one of the best performances of the weekend in the 100 freestyle,” Canyon’s Kevin Childs said of Waage. “It was pretty fun to watch him. He barely made it in and dropped almost a full-second and made top five for prelims so that was really fun to watch and a great experience.”
Saugus’ Justin Morsch finished 11th in 45.56 in the same event.
Childs had the best overall individual finish of any Foothill League swimmer finishing as the runner-up in the boys 100-yard backstroke with a time of 48.61 for All-American auto time. He also finished 10th in the 100-yard butterfly as well.
“The atmosphere was wonderful and it was really well-run,” Childs said. “I’m really happy with my performance. A little bit off my best time, I had a shot of winning, but I can’t be upset with second place at state.”
