Guerra completes at winter junior nationals

Fallbrook’s Bobby Guerra competed at the 2012 Speedo Winter Junior National Championships swim meet Dec. 6 to 8 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

The 16-year-old Guerra, who is a sophomore at Fallbrook High School, competed in four events and had time trials in two other events.

“His performance there, being in his first national-level meet, I thought he did great,” said FAST coach Sean Redmond. “This meet had the top 18-and-under boys, and there were 400 of them, in the country.”

Guerra posted a time of 4:40.49 in the 500-yard freestyle race Dec. 6, which would be his only performance at the meet which didn’t set a personal record. His time trial of 52.90 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly that day was a drop of 1.7 seconds from his previous best time in that event. His competition in the 200-yard freestyle Dec. 6 produced a time of 1:42.83, which was more than four seconds faster than his previous personal best. Guerra also swam the 400-yard individual medley as a time trial Dec. 6 and had a time of 4:10.15, which was an 11-second drop from his previous best time.

Guerra began Dec. 8 with the 200-yard butterfly. He swam that event in 1:55.42, which was a 2.9-second drop from his previous best.

Guerra’s best showing of the meet was 28th place in the 1,650-yard freestyle. “That was a good race,” Redmond said.

Guerra had a time of 15:48.90 in that Dec. 8 race, which was a drop of 38 seconds from his previous personal record. “At that level that is not expected to be that big of a drop,” Redmond said.

Guerra’s previous best time in that event was set on Nov. 16 in the Aqua Caliente meet in Palm Springs. He had a time of 16:27.66 in that meet.