1 Gold, 1 Silver, and Two Records Improved

After all the ups and downs over the past 12 months, Lorelei Rojo found her silver lining at Del Rio League Finals. Lorelei's Freshman year started off with a bang. In the first two pre-season meets, she took the #1 spots for the 1oo Butterfly and the 100 Backstroke school records. But then COVID changed everything. The season was quickly canceled. School went online. Her club team, Vikings Aquatics, where she has swam for the past 3 years, canceled practices. Spring turned into Summer... then Fall.... Winter... the New Year.... COVID kept her out of the water for an entire year.

In the late Winter/Early Spring, the state and county decided to reopen sports provided teams followed COVID protocols. Just as things were starting to look up, El Rancho's pool flatlined. This 60+ year facility, which was not in the original budget for the school but came to being after the community raised additional money for its creation, finally gave out. A pool deck that was graced by some amazing coaches like Doug Anderson (UCLA All American goalie), Dan Marshall, Joel Francisco, Marcello Leonardi (current Michigan State coach and Olympic Development Program Technical Director), and John Pringle (La Serna HS water polo coach).

Fortunately for the AquaDons, once the State, the County, and the Del Rio League hammered out the COVID protocols, our hard working Athletic Director Mr. Medrano and Assistant Principal of Activities Mrs. Leal secured us 3 days a week at the Pioneer HS's pool. So after a year of not training, Lorelei was able to get back in the pool and find her former form. And the results were clear from today's Girls Finals: Gold Medal 100 Backstroke and Silver Medal in 100 Butterfly. And to top it off, she improved her #1 ERHS All-Time 100 Butterfly time by 1.1 seconds (1:01.18) and her #1 ERHS All-Time 100 Backstroke time by almost 2 seconds (1:02.96) and with her relay team, set a new #5 ERHS time in the 400 Free Relay. Both times were just shy of "automatic qualifying times" for CIF. Usually, we would be confident that she would be competing at next weeks CIF meet, but due to COVID restrictions, the qualifying field will be cut from 32 swimmers to the 16. We'll find out at the end of the week if she qualifies for one or both events.

 UPDATE: Lorelei qualified for CIF SS D-III 100 Butterfly and 100 Backstroke. The meet will take place at Santa Margarita HS at 4pm in Rancho Santa Margarita.