Over the years, the Valencia girls swim program program some of the league fastest swimmers who’ve set some of the Foothill League’s best times.
Sophomore sensations Izabella Adame and Julia Unas are two of the latest standouts.
Carrying the torch in the 2017-18 freshmen season, the two burst onto the Foothill League Finals finishing in first and second place in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard breaststroke, respectively, and they were also part of the Foothill League title-winning 200-yard freestyle relay team along with Allison Cho and fellow freshman Emma Hiett.
Adame was also part of the 200-yard individual medley team (Adame, Hiett, Cho and Jin Young Yi), and earned the title of Foothill League Girls Swimmer of the year.
Unfortunately, the Vikings girls team finished second to Hart, but the two used the second-place finish as motivation to come back even stronger.
Powering the 2018-19 Vikings girls team to a Foothill League title the two came back even stronger to defeat the Hart girls team as Adame defended both her titles in the 200-yard individual medley dropping more than two seconds off last year’s finals time and set the new league record in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 53.85 seconds.
Adame repeated as the Foothill League girls swimmer of the year with her finishes.
“Yeah, that was kind of my goal and I kind of wanted to break the record in the 200-IM, but I just feel like I’m not ready, yet,” Adame said. “Hopefully, next year I will be able to break it.”
Unas joined her as the only other Valencia girls swimmer to win an individual award taking home first in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:03.79.
Joining this year’s 200-yard individual medley relay team, Unas was able to not only take home one, but two relay titles as the duo also defended their title in the 200-yard freestyle relay.
“It feels really great because Julia and I have worked so hard during practices and I just feel really accomplished,” Adame said.
“It feels really good to be on these winning relays with them, especially since I wasn’t on the medley relay team last year,” Unas said, “and getting to be on this team and breaking the league record was really surprising.”
Meeting each other and swimming together for the past five years at Canyons Aquatic Club, the pair hit it off as soon as they met. Now the two have plenty of time to break records over the next two years.