Boys swim finishes sixth in CIF

Fallbrook High School’s boys swim team finished sixth at the CIF championship meet, and Fallbrook junior Stott Bushnell set a school record in winning the 100-yard freestyle race.

The sixth-place finish, along with a second-place finish in the Avocado League, came despite losing 17 of 29 members of the 2006 team and returning only four swimmers who spent all of 2006 on the varsity.

“Pretty good for really a new team,” said Fallbrook coach Bill Richardson.

“We were coming off a second-place finish at CIF, which equaled the best our school has ever done,” Richardson said. “This year we had a lot of surprises, some real good efforts to step up and do really well.”

The 2007 team included just four senior swimmers and one junior swimmer along with one senior diver and one junior diver. The senior diver, Kevin Jones, finished second in diving at the CIF meet while the junior diver, Kelly Brower, was seventh in the CIF competition.

Bushnell’s time of 47.07 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle not only won the CIF meet but also broke the school record of 47.17 seconds set by Danny Ender in 2000. Bushnell actually won two races at the CIF meet; while the top six swimmers in the CIF preliminaries participate in the championship race at the CIF finals the seventh-place through twelfth-place finishers compete in a consolation race. Bushnell won the consolation 50-yard freestyle at the CIF finals for an official seventh-place finish in that event.

Senior Nick Baird was 11th in the breaststroke at the CIF finals, while freshman Cameron Mannino placed 12th in the backstroke.