Assoc. Sports Editor
The perfect weather above Riverside Community College aquatic center set the stage for the CIF Southern Section swimming finals this morning as four girls and five boys from the South Pasadena squad competed in a variety of events. Overall, the boys’ team placed ninth in point total, and the girls’ team placed 22nd out of over 110 schools from the southern section of California.
“I’m definitely going to miss the practices and my teammates,” Senior Kate Iio said. “I can’t believe four years has already gone by so fast. Our team did so well this year with all four levels being undefeated, having the most CIF qualifiers this year, and with some of our swimmers being able to break more records this year. I’m going to miss racing at the SPHS pool after 11 years.”
This marked the last swim meet for three of the girl swimmers. Senior Sabrina Zavala finished 7th in the 500 yard freestyle event with a time of 5:03.91. Senior Grace Wakabayashi finished her 200 yard final 6th place with a time of 1:55.11, a half second increase from her prelims time. Iio missed breaking a 25 second 50-yard freestyle time, but still finished 17th at 25.14.
Leading the South Pasadena boys’ team, senior Garrett Tse qualified for two events- the 100 yard butterfly and 200 individual medley. Tse finished 7th and 4th in the respective events with times of 50.44 and 1:52.21. Sophomore Jacob Mullin competed in the 100 butterfly and the 100 yard backstroke, and finished 12th and 5th overall in the two events. Senior Griffin Yerian finished 16th with a 51.62 100 butterfly time.
The 200 boys’ medley relay team consisting of Mullin, Tse, Yerian, and junior Aaron Ogita finished 5th place overall with a time of 1:36.56, beating out the 6th place team by .01 second. The 400 boys’ free relay, comprised of Tse, senior William Jo, Yerian and Mullin finished 10th place with a time of 3:13.73.
The girls’ 200 free relay team of Iio, Wakabayashi, Zavala, and junior Laura Mendenhall finished 16th in the event with a 1:42.99. The same members also competed in the 400 free relay, and finished similarly in 15th with a time of 3:42.60.
