Hanlon wins league diving title, girls swim team finishes second

Fallbrook High School sophomore Kelly Hanlon won the Valley League girls diving championship.

Hanlon had a score of 187.70 points on six dives during the league championship meet May 2 at the Fallbrook High School pool. She beat out teammate Amelia Johnson, a senior at Oasis High School who dives for Fallbrook High School under the CIF's Multi-School Teams Status policy which allows students attending certain schools to compete for specified other teams. Johnson placed second with 178.00 points.

"Her drive and commitment is what really helped her get through," Fallbrook coach Sean Redmond said of Hanlon. "She kept working and working."

The league swim preliminary races were held May 3 and the league finals took place May 5. Fallbrook finished second with 469 points while Classical Academy won the meet and the league championship with 551 points.

"We had some good swims," Redmond said. "They had a little bit more than we did."

Classical Academy also won the dual meet portion of league competition with a 5-0 record. Fallbrook's 4-1 league record reflects the Warriors' March 23 loss to the Caimans in Escondido.

The league championship formula utilizes league dual meet standings for half of the weighted formula and positions at the league championship meet for the other 50 percent. The Warriors had an overall dual meet record of 6-3 for the season.

Fallbrook took second place in three swimming events at the league meet. Classical Academy sophomore Carly Hoff, whose parents are Fallbrook High School graduates and whose grandparents still live in Fallbrook, won the 100-yard freestyle race in 54.45 seconds with Fallbrook senior Amelia Thomas taking second place with a time of 56.46 seconds.

A total of three Fallbrook swimmers placed among the top six in the 100-yard freestyle preliminary heats and advanced to the championship final in which sophomore Natalie Wood finished fourth with a time of 58.72 seconds and senior Caitlyn Batty placed sixth at 59.55 seconds.

San Pasqual won the 200-yard medley relay in 1:59.22. The Fallbrook quartet of Batty, sophomore Kendra Donoghue, Wood, and Thomas had the second-place time of 2:00.76.

Thomas had a time of 25.58 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle to place second behind Classical Academy senior Karina Thomson, whose time was 24.78 seconds.

Classical Academy set a meet record of 1:41.41 in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The Fallbrook contingent of senior Madalyn Johnson, Batty, Wood, and Thomas had the third-place time of 1:45.15.

Johnson, sophomore Kaitlyn Gallagher, sophomore Gabby Vazzana, and junior Ella Hearn placed fourth in the 400-yard freestyle relay by completing that race in 4:13.89.

Donoghue was the fourth-place finisher in the 100-yard breaststroke race; she completed her laps in 1:15.66.

Two Warriors qualified for the 200-yard individual medley championship race: senior Sarah Draves finished fifth at 2:32.61 and Vazzana placed sixth with a time of 2:37.67.

Batty took fifth place in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:10.46 while senior Lauryn Scrape was sixth in that event at 1:13.38.

Hoff had the winning time of 1:59.23 in the 200-yard freestyle. Wood was sixth with a 2:13.95 performance.

The sixth-place finisher in the 500-yard freestyle was freshman Anna Draves, whose time was 6:15.08. Draves also had Fallbrook's best performance in the 100-yard butterfly, qualifying for the consolation finals and finishing ninth at 1:12.89.