If You Can't Beat 'Em, Then Drop Time!

Today's team talk went a little something like this: 

In the sport of swimming, there is always two competitions... you versus your opponents (what. place you come in) and you versus the clock. Today, I want you to focus on the clock...

The perennial Del Rio League Champs (The La Serna Lancers) are competing in Division 2 this year. So today's meet saw the AquaDons trying to punch up a weight class. Having lost Senior Robert Robles this week to injury, and a Junior (who will remain unnamed due to his suspension for poor grades), the team was down to 5 swimmers. But our group of 5 had some time drops! 

Sophomore Jared GONZALEZ earned 3 points today and dropped -1.22sec in his 50 FREE. GONZALEZ also swam the 500 FREE for the first time, and his inaugural time beat his teammate ANTONIO's time by a whopping 20 seconds.

Sophomore teammate Mateo Ramirez earned 8 points today and dropped a HUGE -8.93sec in his 100 BREAST and -1.12sec in the 200 FREE RELAY. 

Sophomore teammate Fernando ANTONIO earned his 8 points today in a tough 200 IM swim that put him at a time near last weeks and a 100 BREAST that skimmed off -0.8 sec from the Paramount Meet.  ANTONIO  also cut a nice chunk (-1.60sec) from his 50 FREE portion of the 200 FREE RELAY.

Rookie Junior Devin CLARDY also put up 8 points set a Personal Best in his 50 FREE, which betters his "relay" times. This is significant because relay legs are usually faster due to the swimmer timing his start off of his teammates finish, whereas the start for the 50 FREE is off the timer's beep. Later in the meet, CLARDY shaved almost -0.3 sec in his 200 FREE RELAY leg from last week's time. CLARDY would also drop -1.28 sec in his 400 FREE RELAY leg.

Senior Captain Daniel BAUTISTA topped the group and earned 9 points, officially securing his 4th Varsity Letter during the very first league meet of the season.  BAUTISTA started off a little slower than usual in the 200 FREE and 200 FREE RELAY, but he crushed his 100 BACK time by -6.05 sec from the Los Altos meet.

Special congratulations to Captain BAUTISTA for beating one of the three La Serna Lancers and taking 3rd place in the 200 FREE.

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JV 4-124 La Serna

As with the Varsity, the JV team is severly undermanned. Freshman swimmer Ruben Magallanes took 4th place in both the 50 FREE and the 100 FREE.