Tag: swim

  • Swim time for the last time!

    At their final home meet on April 10th, the Poly swim team’s hard work throughout the course of the season has been showcased in their spectacular performance against Wilson. The girls won the varsity and frosh/soph levels, with varsity crushing their competition 112 to 58. The frosh/soph team made Poly history as the second frosh/soph team to ever claim victory over Wilson. The boys team put up a fight, but unfortunately suffered a loss on all levels. The pressure is on as the long awaited Moore League finals draw closer and these two rivals face off once again.
    Captain of the girls team, Allison DeYoung, expressed her triumph and hope about their victory. “Being part of such an amazing team and beating Wilson on such a large scale has us all pumped and ready to continue our winning streak at finals”, she said.
    There were many stunning swims by the girls including Josie Liebzeit’s 1:57.00 200 freetsyle and 5:13.79 freestyle, Victoria Quach’s 1:00.92 100 butterfly and 101.94 backstroke, and Georgia Buffington’s 54.97 100 freestyle- just to name a few highlights. Overall, the varsity girls placed first in 10 out of 11 events- a clean sweep. They hope to retain their title as Moore League champions by continuing last year’s “threepeat” into “4 Moore”.
    Captain of the boys team, Garrett Lundeen said “It’s sad that it was my last home meet, but I don’t think I would’ve wanted to spend it with any other team”, the loss clearly not diminishing the pride he has for his team. Garrett won the 100 freestyle sprint with a 50.11 and tied with Poly junior Chase McPherson in the 50 freestyle for second place with a 22.56. Chase had an impressive meet, beating his personal record in three events by swimming a 22.56 in the aforementioned 50 freestyle, 58.08 in the 100 butterfly, and 50.90 in the 100 freestyle. Another big contributor to Poly’s points was junior Casey Lait who placed first in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke with a 53.82 and 53.36 respectively.
    Coach Kalani Caldwell has primed her girls to their peak performance level and she is ready to dominate the competition. On April 16th , the girls will compete at Moore League prelims at Cabrillo High School and hopefully qualify for finals on the 18th. “So proud of the girls!” she exclaimed. They have worked extremely hard this season and have stayed focus on their number one goal- to win Moore League!”.
    The boys will have their prelims April 15th and their finals on the 17th.
    After Moore League, swimmers who qualified will compete in CIF, an invitational meet determined by meeting a certain time at any point in the season.

  • Swim Starts Off Strong

    Poly’s swimming season has started. There was a girls swim meet against Los Alamitos and Marina,  which in they lost by a small margin. The thing with those swim meets is that they were D1 teams which made it harder because they were faster. This made good turnouts to the girls swim team with the fact that they can get an idea of the future of the season.
    The biggest competition so far is with Wilson High School since the Bruins have been maintained a 44 year winning streak in the boys swim meets. Boys varsity swim team is hopefully going to kill it this season because the boys have the capability of beating Wilson from all their hard work and effort.

    Most of the good swimmers have gotten a head start on this sport, having played five years old, such as Isabella Magalong a senior student member in the girls swim team, and Leilani Davila, a former member of the swim team. Many think that swim should actually be considered an individual sport but our swim team has a different opinion about that. As Magalong states, ”Before high school swim I would participate in club swimming, which in the time I saw it as an individual sport, but now I see it as a group sport,and as a team everyone has an aspect and each get points and have it as an accumulative effort.”

  • Spring Sports 2017 Preview

    Track:

    As track season is rapidly approaching, the Trackrabbits are getting ready to dominate. In order to prepare for the season they are “training for two to three hours after school and on Saturdays,” said senior Lauren Fillipow who is committed to Southern Oregon. This is a tight-knit team whose goal is to “just push each other to do our best, so that we can all improve together and since a lot of the team is seniors, we want to have a great last high school season,” said senior Melissa Tanaka.
    Nate Cooper, a junior who recently participated in a cross country race in Oregon, stated, “My personal goals for the season are similar to everyone else’s goals on the team. I hope to make my times as fast as I personally can, and to help my team as much as possible.” Hopes are high for the Trackrabbits, and we can be positive that they will live up to their expectations.

    Swim:

    The next sport for the Poly Jackrabbits in the upcoming spring season is swim. Last season for girls swim, junior Tevykah Pouv coined the Varsity group as the “dream team.” Looking back on last year, junior Priscilla Long said, “Last season for Moore League we won and it was such an amazing feeling” and for this coming season Long wants to “work towards the same goal we had last year. I’d like our team to continue to work together and stay united no matter what the outcome is.”
    For boys swim, Poly came in second with Wilson in first. Junior Ethan McCarthy stated, “This year I think we have high hopes for beating Wilson at Moore League and that’s the goal, too.” Both girls and boys swim are looking towards a bright, ambitious season.

  • Jackrabbits Swim to 2nd in Moore League

    Swim season has come to an end, as both teams were defeated at Wilson on April 30, and then yet again outdone by Wilson on Moore League finals. The Jackrabbits then brought their top qualifiers to CIF on Friday, May 16, and then again for finals on Saturday, May 17.

    On May 16 and 17, a team of 19 swimmers traveled to Riverside to participate in Divison 2 CIF. A total of 14 swimmers qualified for finals on the 17. This included the relay team of sophomore Saranna Quach, freshman Bella Magalong, junior Clare Leonard and senior Alana Murray, who broke the school records for both the 200 medley and the 400 free relay. For the boys, senior Lee Puckett set the school record for the 100 backstroke with a time of 55.99 seconds.  In addition, the relay team of junior Jonathan “Chief” Coleman, senior Ryan Rockenbach, Puckett and senior Ryan Sar broke the school record for the 200 free relay.

    “It was a record setting year for Poly. We placed higher than Wilson and Millikan at CIF,” said Rockenbach. “Making CIF was such a huge accomplishment for me.”

    On the week of May 5 to 9, Cabrillo hosted all Moore League prelims and finals at their new pool. On Tuesday, May 6, and then Thursday, May 9, the girls traveled to Cabrillo to defend last year’s Moore League victory. Unfortunately, the girls were unable to defend their Moore League Championship against Wilson, placing second overall.  Despite the loss, it was still a positive night for the Jackrabbits who not only won the sportsmanship award, but also school records in the 200 medley relay, 400 free relay and 100 breaststroke.

    “Coming in this year, I didn’t know what to expect for high school swim,” said Magalong. “Even though we weren’t able to win, I am happy to be on this team.”

    The boys swam at Moore League Prelims on May 7 and then Finals on the 10th. Unlike the girls, the boys were swimming in hopes of winning their first Moore League title, but the Bruins outswam the Jackrabbits, who came in second with a total of 402 points.

    “My strategy going into Moore League was to try to match-up with Wilson and Lakewood as best as we could. We tied for a 2nd place finish last year with Lakewood to Wilson at Moore League. My main goal was to close the gap between us and Wilson, which we achieved,” said head coach Eddie Kim.

    On April 30, the Jackrabbits traveled to Wilson, as the two biggest Long Beach rivals came together to see which team’s perfect league streak was broken. Even though it was close throughout the meet, neither were able to get the win over the Bruins. Both teams held a slight lead at the halfway mark, but Wilson’s depth in the 500 freestyle turned the tables in the Bruins favor. The Jackrabbits slowly lost their lead and soon both teams came to lose to the Bruins 93-76 for the boys and 91-79 for the girls.

    Despite the losses, the Jackrabbits had a great year with several new records under their belt. While many swimmers leave for water polo season, the training continues for the Jackrabbit swimmers to claim Moore League next year.