Fallbrook girls 18th at CIF swim meet

The CIF swim meet at Granite Hills High School in May ended with Fallbrook High School's girls team taking 18th place among Division I schools.

"I thought they did very well," said Fallbrook coach Sean Redmond. "In many cases they were right at their best times."

Individuals rather than schools qualify for the CIF meet whose Division I swim preliminaries were held May 9 at Granite Hills. Those with high enough positions advanced to the swim finals May 12. The CIF diving championship meet occurred May 11 at Mesa College.

Fallbrook's girls qualified for the CIF meet in all three relay events. Three Warriors qualified for the CIF diving meet.

Fallbrook freshman Paris Dowden and junior Kendra Donoghue each swam in two individual events (a swimmer is limited to two individual events at the CIF meet even if she qualifies for more, and a swimmer can also compete in one individual race and three relay races), and juniors Natalie Wood and Gabby Vazzana each competed in one individual event.

The swimmers or relay teams in each division with the top eight times in the preliminary heats advanced to the championship race while those with the next eight fastest times qualified for the consolation race, and position points were given for finishes in those races. The divers with the top 16 scores also earned position points for their schools. Fallbrook's 24 team points were all scored by relay teams which participated in the consolation final.

Redmond is not disappointed that 17 Division I teams finished ahead of Fallbrook.

"They had more depth, and it was a fast meet," said Redmond.

The Warriors' best finish was in the first swimming event. The 200-yard medley relay team of Dowden, Vazzana, Wood, and Donoghue placed 12th with a time of 2:01.38 in the finals. Their preliminaries time of 1:59.15 also placed 12th among Division I quartets.

The meet closed with the 400-yard freestyle relay in which junior Kaitlyn Callagher, sophomore Sophia Wallace, Wood and Dowden had the 13th-place time of 3:55.74. They swam the preliminaries in 3:54.55, which was the tenth-fastest time.

Wallace, Callagher, Wood and Donoghue comprised Fallbrook's 200-yard freestyle relay team. Their finals time of 1:47.54 gave them 14th place. They had placed 11th in the preliminaries with a time of 1:46.94.

The highest-placing Fallbrook diver was junior Kelly Hanlon, who took 20th place with a score of 161.70 points on six dives. A score of 145.50 points gave sophomore Kassidy Ewig 26th place, and sophomore Chiara Curnow had the 30th-place score of 131.15 points.

Dowden placed 19th in the 200-yard freestyle with a preliminaries time of 2:05.30 and 20th in the 100-yard freestyle preliminaries which took her 56.91 seconds. Donoghue had a 50-yard freestyle preliminaries time of 26.16 seconds, which was worth 22nd place. Wood had the 25th-fastest preliminaries time in the 100-yard backstroke at 1:06.96. Two Warriors were in the 100-yard breaststroke preliminaries; Donoghue took 31st place at 1:16.50 and Vazzana was 32nd with a 1:17.49 performance.

The 18th-place finish was achieved without any seniors. "That bodes well for next year," Redmond said.