The Los Alamos High School Girls Swim and Dive Team/Courtesy photo
BY SANDY HURLOCKER
Hilltopper Swim/Dive Team
The Hilltopper Swim/Dive team wrapped up the regular season at the District Championships in
Santa Fe. The team went with high expectations after a grueling January schedule: Five meets in five weeks. Unfortunately, a rash of illnesses kept many swimmers home.
The larger and deeper girl’s team was able to handle their missing swimmers to win the District title. For the boys, many key swimmers were missing, yet they still managed to place fourth thanks to several exceptional performances.
The District 2 championship marks the season end for a good portion of the Topper boys and girls.
“This was a super successful season,” said Head Coach Pat Brug. “Swimming is a team sport, but we measure success by how individuals improve, and it’s impressive that the average improvement over 100 yards for the entire team of 39 swimmers was more than 2.5 seconds. At the high school level, improvements to times for 100-yard-events are usually measured in less than 1.5 seconds,” Coach Brug added.
Here are some notable improvements at the District 2 championship:
Malin Eidenbenz improved 9.1 seconds in the 200 Freestyle
Aleena Rim improved 5.03 seconds in the 100 Freestyle
Anna Kerstiens improved 6.52 seconds in her 100 Freestyle
Nuala Colgan improved 6.48 seconds in her 100 Backstroke
Austin Theye’s 2.7 second drop in the 100 Freestyle earned the top boy improvement.
The best Topper improvement of the season was Jade Peterson ’s 100 Breaststroke, with a whopping 11.5 seconds off her early season time.
“Everyone on the team worked very hard, swimming in a meet nearly every weekend,” Coach Brug said. “Thanks to the hard work and an amazing staff of coaches, it really paid off.”
At first place the girls scored 540 points, outpacing Farmington at second (340 points) and Santa Fe High (273 points). Although the boys competed without some of their key swimmers, the team still racked up 278 points, behind first place Farmington (398 points), second place
Santa Fe High (363 points), and third place Santa Fe Prep (293 points).
As the case has been all year, the girls had strong relay performances, winning the 200 Freestyle relay (Emma Riede, Lena Ronning, Anna Kerstiens, Sophia Pieck) and coming in second in the 400 Freestyle (Grace Nowell, Samantha Clayton, Deb Brug, Sophia Pieck), and third in the 200 medley (Sonya Pakin, Grace Evans, Lena Ronning, Deb Brug).
The girls team also showed depth in individual events by taking five of the eight possible
individual District swim titles:
Sonya Pakin: 200 IM and 100 Backstroke
Sophia Pieck: 100 Freestyle
Grace Nowell: 500 Freestyle
Grace Evans: 100 Breaststroke
Along with these championship efforts came a number of swims that contributed to the Girl’s win. In the 50 Freestyle, Sophia Pieck swam to a very close second (0.14 second), followed by Samantha Clayton at third and Anna Kerstiens at fifth.
In the 100 Freestyle, Sophia’s first place was backed up again by Samantha Clayton (third) and Anna Kerstiens (sixth).
Grace Nowell’s first place in the 500 Freestyle was backed up by Catherine Price at third and Deb Brug at fifth.
Finally, Grace Evans’ first place in the 100 Breaststroke came ahead of second place Alma Hurlocker and Lena Ronning at third.
For the boys a set of excellent performances kept them in the running:
Sam Nowell placed first in the 100 Butterfly
Jace Kerstiens placed second in the 50 and 100 Freestyle,
Zach Sestric placed second in the 200 Freestyle and third in the 500 Freestyle
Ammon Lee followed up Zach with a third place finish in the 200 Freestyle and fourth in the 500 Freestyle
Finally, Asher Koh gave the boys a boost by bringing home the District Diving Title.
The last meet of the season was this weekend at the State Championships. Watch for a report on state.