Laguna Blanca boys swim placed second in the CIF-SS Div. 4 Championship Meet on Friday at Mt. SAC.
The four-person Owls’ roster recorded 168 team points, finishing second to the 206 points by Thousand Oaks, who had 12 total swimmers.
“After doing some math when the prelims were done on Tuesday, it was pretty obvious we could contend for a team championship,” Laguna Blanca athletic director Matt Steinhaus said. “To have a team of four swimmers put enough points on the board to finish second and nearly win the whole thing is crazy.”
The 200 freestyle relay team of Rio Valle, Bennett Sullivan, Jack Grube and Eric Feng earned the CIF-SS title in their event with a time of 1:32.04.
That same squad placed third in the 200 medley relay race after finishing in 1:45.40.
Individually, Sullivan earned second place in the 200 medley (2:00.02) and came in third place in the 100 breaststroke (1:00.49) with a pair of personal bests.
Valle also earned seventh place in the 50 freestyle (22.06) and sixth in the 100 freestyle (48.46). Meanwhile, Feng picked up team points by placing ninth in the 50 freestyle (22.23) and 10th in the 100 freestyle (50.21).
“Rio, Bennett and Eric scoring in two individual events each is amazing,” Steinhaus said. “And then adding Jack as the final piece in those relay performances speaks to how critical he is to pull off what we did today.”
For the girls, Kendall Keshen capped off her stellar Laguna Blanca career with a second-place finish in the 200 individual medley (2:09.09) and fifth place in the 100 breaststroke (1:09.26).
Keshen just missed out on repeating as CIF champion in the 200 individual medley, finishing just 0.20 seconds behind first place.
“Kendall literally has been the foundation of this program for my three years at Laguna,” Steinhaus said. “Two CIF titles and three runner-ups in the last three years says everything. The success of this tiny program has been mostly built around Kendall’s dominance.
“You know the end is coming, but it bummed me out more than usual when she climbed out of the pool for Launga for the last time today.”
Bishop Diego
Freshman Tierney Clark represented the Cardinals in the Finals on Thursday.
Clark took home fourth place in the 50 freestyle with a personal record time of 25.28 seconds.
She followed up that performance by also placing fourth in the 100 freestyle after finishing in 55.25 seconds.
“She keeps getting faster each race, and we are excited for years to come,” Bishop Diego associate athletic director MeLinda Matsumoto said.