Warrior girls 16th as team at CIF swim meet

This year’s CIF swim meet included a 16th-place finish among Division I schools by the Fallbrook High School girls.

“I was really pleased with how they did, with mostly ninth and 10th-graders,” Fallbrook coach Sean Redmond said.

The meet consisted of swim preliminaries May 2 at Del Norte High School, diving May 3 at Mesa College and swim finals May 4 at Del Norte. Those with the top eight times in each swim preliminaries event advanced to the championship final, while the next eight times earned lanes in the consolation final. Position points for the school were given for championship final and consolation final finishes, and the top 16 diving scores also earned position points.

Two Fallbrook swimmers, freshman Jocelyn Jones and sophomore Paris Dowden, qualified for the consolation finals in individual races. Two of Fallbrook’s three relay teams returned to Del Norte for the consolation finals. The four consolation races gave Fallbrook 35 position points.

“The meet has gotten faster, and our girls responded well,” Redmond said.

Dowden, senior Kendra Donoghue, senior Kaitlyn Callagher and Jones had the ninth place preliminaries time of 1 minute 44.32 seconds in the 200-yard freestyle relay race. They improved their time to 1:43.06 in the finals, which gave them first place in the consolation race and ninth place points. The championship race swimmers or relay teams automatically earn first through eighth place regardless of whether a consolation race time was faster. Fallbrook had the sixth fastest overall time during the 200-yard freestyle relay finals.

The 400-yard freestyle relay team of junior Sophia Wallace, Donoghue, Dowden and Jones swam their preliminaries race in 3:53.17 for the 13th-best time. They cut more than 5 1/2 seconds off that time in the consolation final and took 10th place for their 3:47.56 performance.

“That was everybody swimming faster, which was really exciting to see,” Redmond said.

Callagher and Donoghue were the only two Fallbrook seniors who participated in this year’s CIF meet.

“They really stepped up and had best times for the year,” Redmond said.

During the preliminaries Jones swam the 50-yard freestyle in 25.32 seconds, which placed 14th in that event. Although she was 15th in the final, she improved her time to 25.28 seconds. Donoghue also swam in the 50-yard freestyle preliminaries; her time of 26.32 seconds gave her 29th place.

Dowden was 16th both in the 100-yard breaststroke preliminaries and in the finals. Her times were 1:11.23 in the preliminaries and 1:11.34 in the consolation final. Donoghue had a preliminaries time of 1:13.83 for 25th place.

A false start disqualified Dowden in the 100-yard freestyle preliminaries, although her time of 54.76 seconds would have qualified her for that event’s consolation final. Jones completed her preliminaries laps in 57.67 seconds and took 22nd place.

Wallace had a preliminaries time of 2:08.75 in the 200-yard freestyle, which was worth 29th place.

The 200-yard medley relay team of junior Maggie Walker, Callagher, junior Anna Draves and Wallace placed 29th in the preliminaries with a time of 2:12.52.

Fallbrook’s girls finished 18th among Division I schools at last year’s CIF meet. The Warriors placed 15th at the 2017 meet.