What an epic weekend! 36 members of the AHS Varsity swim team left AHS on Friday morning to drive to Mission Viejo for the 49th Mission Viejo Invitational. A collection of both Northern and Southern California teams are invited to compete at one of the most beautiful facilities I’ve ever seen. After some down time, a lovely pasta dinner (thank you Hampton Inn Irvine Spectrum!), and a STRICT 10pm lights out on Friday night, swimmers were on the bus at 7:15am on Saturday morning to head to the Marguerite Aquatics Complex for a full day of preliminary races, relays, and finals races for the top 20 qualifiers!
The prelim session started right on time at 9:15am with the 200 Free. Sophomore Ella Del Rosario improved her CONS time to 2:00.21 (AUTO is 1:58.66), qualifying 4th, while Sophomore Olivia Whipple qualified 16th with a 2:10.30. For the boys, Senior Parker Etnyre qualified 4th in 1:45.30 – the first NCS Automatic (AUTO) time of the season! Senior Cale Hanson qualified 15th in 1:52.61 – 0.62 sec off CONS!
In the 200 IM, all four AHS swimmers qualified for finals! Senior Taryn Veronda led the charge, qualifying 5th in 2:15.48 (CONS is 2:19.99). Frosh Anna Motes was close behind, qualifying 7th in 2:18.21. Sophomore Audrey Martin, in her 200 IM debut, qualified 14th in 2:26.76 and Junior Levand Koopah qualified 19th in 2:31.59!
The 50 free saw five finals qualifiers from Acalanes. Frosh Adelyn Horciza qualified 13th in 26.10, and Junior FIona Roux qualified 15th in 26.21 with a HUGE time improvement of 1.64 sec! Senior Sophie Hendrickson rounded out the girls with an 18th place finish in 26.50. For the boys, Senior Alexander Butler swam a 22.84, qualifying 5th and Senior Tyler Gerhardt went 19th in 24.15. In the 100 fly, Frosh Kendall Lee, Frosh Tess Veronda and Senior LIv Hoppe qualified 11th, 12th and 13th respectively.
The 100 free races were fast and exciting! Ella Del Rosario qualified 6th with a crazy fast 54.69 (CONS 56.55)! Sophie Hendrickson qualified 15th with a 58.34, and Sophomore Sara Williams qualified 18th with a 58.95 – a HUGE time improvement of 2.04 sec! In the boys race, Parker Etnyre qualified 1st with a 48.17 (AUTO is 47.94, CONS 49.99), while Alexander Butler finished 9th with a 50.62 – a 1.03 sec pop!
My oh my, were the 500 races exciting! SIX of our swimmers qualified for finals, all with significant time improvements. Olivia Whipple qualified 11th with a 5:46.10 (13.61 pop!), Junior Elise Budke finished 14th with 5:58.36 (12.45 sec pop!), Junior Juliet McIlwain finished 16th with 6:05.89 (8.11 sec pop), and Sophomore Brooke Rardin finished 19th with 6:07.96 (a 20.62 sec pop!). Frosh Andrew Tanimura finished 16th with 5:13.65 – a 4.27 second pop – remember he JUST improved 24 seconds at the March 8 Northgate meet! Cale Hanson finished 15th with a 5:12.42 – an 11.68 pop!
We had 5 swimmers qualify for finals in the 100 back! Taryn Veronda finished 4th with a 1:00.70 (CONS is 1:04.99), Senior Brooklyn Plomp finished 6th with a 1:01.13, Kendall Lee finished 11th with 1:04.57 and Tess Veronda was 14th with 1:05.59. Sophomore Mason Schlehr qualified 15th for the boys with a 1:00.07!
The last event of the morning – 100 Breast – saw some amazing swims as well with all our swimmers qualifying for finals (the THIRD event where this happened)! Anna Motes stunned with a 5th place qualifying swim of 1:08.43 which put her at #10 on the AHS Top 10 All-Time List – and she’s a freshman! Audrey Martin popped by 4.38 seconds to qualify 7th with a 1.09.38 (CONS is 1:12.99)! Senior Kyra Weiss went 1:14.25 to qualify 14th and Sophomore Nina Bundy qualified 20th with a 1:16.72! In the boys races, Senior Will Dreyer popped by 6.95 seconds to qualify 14th with a 1:04.41 (CONS is 1:03.55) and Frosh Jayden Hwang finished 19th with a 1:06.53!
The team boarded the bus after the morning session and headed back to the hotel for an hour’s rest before returning at 2pm to warm up for the finals session, which started at 3pm. Starting off with relay finals, the 200 Medley teams went 3 for 4 in earning NCS CONS times – the Girls A team of Taryn Veronda, Anna Motes, Kendall Lee and Fiona Roux finished 6th with 1:53.68 (NCS AUTO is 1:52.62) while the B team of Tess Veronda, Kyra Weiss, Senior Liv Hoppe and Sophie Hendrickson finished 8th place in 1:58.65. The boys A team of Mason Schlehr, Will Dreyer, Junior Anthony Yamamoto and Senior Toby Brock-Utne went 10th in 1:47.78 (CONS is 1:52.99, AUTO 1:39.49) while the B team of Senior Will Paulsen, Jayden Hwang, Senior Tyler Gerhardt and Frosh Braden Dunton finished 16th at 1:54.98!
In the 200 Free Finals, Ella Del Rosario and Olivia Whipple finished 4th and 18th while Parker Etnyre and Cale Hanson went 4th and 14th in their races. Parker cut another 1.46 seconds off his prelim time for a 1:43.84 – an even better NCS AUTO time! Cale Hanson earned his first CONS time of the season – going 1:51.41 (cutoff 1:59.99)!
In the 200 IM, all of our finalists improved their times – Taryn Veronda finished 5th with 2:15.26, Anna Motes finished 6th with 2:15.93 (CONS is 2:19.99), while Audrey Martin finished 14th with 2:26.35 and Levand Koopah moved up to 18th with a 2:31.25. The 50 free saw some fast times with Adelyn Horciza finishing 12th in 25.87 (CONS is 25.66), Fiona Roux going 26.58 for 16th and Sophie Hendrickson with 26.74 and 17th place. Alexander Butler shaved 0.19 seconds to finish 5th in 22.62 (CONS is 22.55!) while Tyler Gerhardt finished 19th in 24.61.
The 100 Fly final saw Kendall Lee, Tess Veronda and Liv Hoppe finishing 11th, 13th and 14th respectively. The 100 Free saw Ella Del Rosario finish 7th while Sophie Hendrickson finished 15th. Sara Williams was the story here, moving from 24th seed to 18th in prelims to a 16th place finish with a 58.96 – great job Sara! Parker Etnyre finished 2nd with his 2nd AUTO time of 47.55 while Alex Butler finished 9th with 51.28.
In the 500 Free finals, the girls pretty much held their places as Olivia Whipple finished 12th, Elise Budke finished 15th, Juliet McIlwain finished 16th and Brooke Rardin finished 17th. The boys must have had something to prove though, since both significantly improved their times from the morning (HOW do you swim a FASTER 500 in the afternoon after already racing one in the morning???). Andrew Tanimura somehow found 4.9 more seconds, finishing 13th in 5:08.25 (CONS is 5:05.99). Cale Hanson though – I don’t know how he did it – but he chopped (not shaved, as we usually say in swimming) 7.25 more seconds off his morning swim (which he already improved by 11+ seconds) to go 5:05.17, earning his second CONS time of the day. That’s right – he raced a 200/500 TWICE in the same day, and improved with each swim! Great job Cale!!!
The 200 Free Relays finished strong with the Girls A team of Liv Hoppe, Ella Del Rosario, Adelyn Horciza and Brooklyn Plomp finishing 5th with a 1:43.34 (AUTO is 1:42.29) and the Boys teams finishing 8th and 14th. The A team of Parker Etnyre, Will Dreyer, Alexander Butler and Tyler Gerhardt went 1:33.31 and the B team of Toby Brock-Utne, Anthony Yamamono, Andrew Tanimura and Cale Hanson went 1:36.02 (CONS is 1:39.99).
The 100 back finals saw Taryn Veronda finishing 3rd with 1:00.10 and Brooklyn Plomp finishing 4th with 1:00.33 – improving her time as #8 on the AHS Top 10 All-Time list! Kendall Lee finished 11th and Tess Veronda finished 14th. Mason Schlehr finished 15th with 59.67 in the boys race. In the 100 breast finals, Anna Motes finished 4th with a 1.07.79 (AUTO is 1:07.37) – which moved her from #10 to #6 on the AHS Top 10 All-Time list! Audrey Martin finished 7th, Kyra Weiss finished 18th and Nina Bundy finished 19th. Will Dreyer finished 14th and Jayden Hwang finished 18th for the boys.
The afternoon finished strong with the 400 Free Relay teams. The Girls A team of Brooklyn Plomp, Ella Del Rosario, Sophie Hendrickson and Taryn Veronda finished 7th with an NCS AUTO time of 3:46.60 while the B team of Jessica Gerhardt, Kate Roberts, Sadie Hendrickson and Fiona Roux went CONS with 4:02.72. The boys B team of Braden Dunton, Andrew Tanimura, Jayden Hwang and Will Paulsen went 16th with 3:48.75.
The swimmers celebrated that night with an evening at the Irvine Spectrum followed by a few hours at Laguna Beach the next morning before heading home on Sunday afternoon. A great meet for the Dons, NCS times earned, Top 10 times earned, and lots and lots of fun! Next meet is at home v Campo – Thursday, 3/21. GO DONS!!
