San Benito Aquatics wraps up season with impressive showing at
CVAL Championships; swimmers young and old star for club as
improvements abound
Morgan Hill – After an exhausting weekend of swimming, San Benito Aquatics could finally revel in its accomplishments. Despite being significantly undermanned in the Coast Valley Aquatics League Short Course Championships, the Hollister-based club enjoyed a record day in the season-ending meet on August 4-6.
“It was awesome, absolutely awesome,” SBA co-head coach Cathy Larson said. “It went better than we’ve ever done, ever before.”
SBA, competing with 55 swimmers, took fifth place with 1668.5 points in the nine-team competition at the Morgan Hill Aquatics Center. By way of comparison, the Gilroy Gators Swim Team finished third, but needed 110 swimmers to secure its 2042.5 points.
The Monterey County Aquatic Team, with 183 swimmers, won the championships by amassing 4266 points.
With two swimmers earning High Point honors and the bulk of the rest posting significant time improvements, SBA wrapped up the summer season with a bang.
“The kids did fantastic,” co-head coach Christine Schafer said. “We had amazing swims by pretty much the whole team.”
Fittingly, one of San Benito’s up-and-comers and one of its veteran stars finished tops in their age groups. Elizabeth Fleming, 5, won three of her five events and finished third in another to wrap up the individual High Point award for the 6-and-under girls. Shelli Reed, a standout on the San Benito High team, won all five events she entered, posting personal-best times in three of them, to take home the honor for the 13-14 girls.
The preliminaries of an event usually involved around 75 swimmers, meaning any contestant that advanced to the 16-person finals enjoyed a significant achievement. With the finals of any given event taking place later in the same day of the event’s preliminaries and many of the swimmers competing in events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the CVAL Championships made high placers earn their marks. And SBA swimmers littered their names across the top of the charts.
Zach Tolentino, 10, continued his rapid improvement this summer by picking up medals in each of his five events, never finishing lower than seventh. Zach’s brothers performed well, too. Kyle Tolentino, 12, medaled in three events, while Chad, 6, competing in a big meet for the first time, finished ninth and 10th in his two races.
Kayla Klauer and Gracie Larson, both 8, advanced to the finals of all of their events.
Larson and Matthew Thomas, also 8, drew their coach’s praise for both finishing in the top-three of their respective 200-yard freestyle races. “I think they did really well,” co-head coach Larson said. “That’s an eight-lap race for a little tiny kid.”
Demi Gatrell, Lacey Larson and Katie Buzzetta enjoyed noteworthy performances for the more established SBA swimmers. Gatrell, 14, posted a New Far Western time in the 100-yard freestyle and a New AA time in the 100-yard butterfly. Larson, 15, recorded a New AA time in Friday’s 500-yard freestyle and took 14 seconds off her previous best in the 100-yard butterfly. Buzzetta, 16, enjoyed New AA and New A times in the 100-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke, respectively.
At least one swimmer improved so much that it surprised even a coach that sees him swim all the time. After watching Adrian Martinez, 10, pick up a second-place finish to go with a pair of fifths, Larson said, “He finaled, which just floored all of us.”
Catherine Nordstrom, the daughter of San Benito High boys’ varsity coach Leif Nordstrom, finished second in the 50-yard freestyle and joined three teammates to form a head-turning 6-and-under girls’ 100-yard medley relay. Samantha Baer and Mackenzie Thomas teamed with Fleming and Nordstrom as the only such all-girls team. “It was really impressive to see 6-year-olds doing butterfly and breaststroke and all that stuff,” co-head coach Larson noted, “because some 9-year-olds are barely doing that.”
Two other SBA girls’ relay teams won their events. Gracie Larson, Michelle Brunido and Kayla and Lauren Klauer took first in the 8-and-under 100-yard freestyle relay, and Caitlin Schafer, Linnae Rodriguez, Kaiya Richards and Haley Larson won the 10-and-under 200-yard medley relay. The latter foursome, in particular, drew mention from the SBA coaching staff.
“They’re comers, these little girls,” co-head coach Schafer said of the 10-and-under medley team. “They’re doing extremely well.They’re going to be girls to watch in the future.”
Brunido, 8, also pocketed medals in all five of her individual events, including two seconds and a third.
Schafer, 10, earned five individual medals as well and accomplished the difficult feat of posting personal best times across the board in the finals.
SBA also furthered its goal of bringing new talent to the pool, with Esmeralda Escamilla, 9, Michelle Hernandez, 11, and Megan Geary, 14, all finishing their first competitive seasons with strong swims in Morgan Hill.
With its enormously successful showing in the CVAL Championships, which included 696 swimmers, in the books, SBA now moves away from the competition-filled summer season.
“We’re going to go back to our training phase,” co-head coach Larson said, “for October, November and December. We’re losing some kids to water polo. Our next biggie is Zones in January.”
With months of hard work in the pool sure to ensue between now and then, SBA can look forward to an even brighter future.
Contact Scott Campbell at
sc*******@fr***********.com
.
