The Trinity Classical Academy boys’ swim program has had swimmers qualify for the CIF Southern Section finals each of the 14 years of the program’s existence, but it wasn’t until this year that the program finally claimed the title of CIF champion.
On the back of senior Thomas Rolls’ first-place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke and two top-three relay finishes at Mt. San Antonio College last week, the Trinity Knights picked up 157 points on their way to hoisting the Division 4 plaque.
Over at Santa Clarita Christian, senior Sophia Blietz repeated as champion in both the girls’ 100 butterfly and the 100 backstroke.
Trinity head coach Mike Leathers said the closest the Knights had come prior to this year’s title was 16th place last year. This year, they finished 20 points ahead of second-place Villanova Prep.
“This is a big step up for us,” Leathers said in a phone interview. “You plant the seed and you pray for the rain. You got to be ready when God provides the water. And so this week, God opened up the door for us to have a chance to win.”
Rolls finished the 100 breaststroke in 1:01.84, nearly three seconds better than his time in the preliminaries when he finished in third place.
“His switching that from third to first clinched the contest for us,” Leathers said. “Once he did that, we had an insurmountable lead going into that final relay.”
And he wasn’t the only Knight to step it up from prelims to finals.
Leathers said both sophomore Liam Waldman and senior Luke Rodriguez weren’t expected to break the top 10 in either of their two individual events, but they ended up doing so.
Waldman was sixth in the 500 freestyle and ninth in the 200 freestyle, while Rodriguez took eighth in both the 50 freestyle and the 100 freestyle.
“We got every swimmer that we needed to into finals, and that’s what kind of differentiated us from the other teams,” Leathers said. “We had six out of the eight events with a swimmer in finals. We were the only team to do that.”
Rolls, Waldman and Rodriguez were all part of the 4×100 freestyle relay team that finished third, as well as the 4×50 medley relay to a second-place finish, along with freshman Connor Mekhdjian. Freshman Arthur Theule was the fourth member of the 4×100 freestyle team.
Leathers credited the stiff competition faced throughout the regular season at Heritage League meets for getting his swimmers ready for the CIF meet.
“The competition level there on the guys’ side has been really great,” Leathers said. “Santa Clarita Christian had two relays plus two swimmers at CIF in finals. Palmdale Aerospace had a relay that made finals as well. And these are schools that we swim against every week. So, they really, that really helped us prepare for CIF.”
