Warrior mermen nearly perfect against Longhorns

A perfect score at a high school swim meet would be 140 points unless both teams have divers. Fallbrook High School came close to perfection, March 10, in the Warriors’ home meet against Rancho Buena Vista High School, defeating the Longhorns by a 137-25 margin.

“They’re doing really well. The kids are working hard,” Fallbrook coach Bill Richardson said.

Each school is allowed three swimmers in each of the eight individual races which provide six team points for first place, four points for second, three points for third, two points for fourth and one point for fifth. A school can enter two quartets in each of the three relay races which award eight points for first, four for second and two for third. Rancho Buena Vista took third in the 500-yard freestyle race, but the Warriors swept the top scoring positions in each of the other 10 scored events.

“I wasn’t paying attention to the score, actually,” Richardson said.

Richardson did not desire such a discrepancy between the two teams.

“I probably would have changed a few things in the lineup,” he said.

The diving is not scored if only one school in a dual meet has a diver, although that school’s diver or divers can compete for CIF meet qualifying purposes. Fallbrook junior Donovan Taylor had already posted an automatic qualifying score for the CIF meet, and since the judges’ scores are multiplied by the degree of difficulty to determine the score of each dive Taylor and Fallbrook girls’ diver Payton Wilson had an informal competition in which they performed the same six dives. Taylor gained experience on dives Wilson performs better while accumulating 194.35 points.

Fallbrook’s first-place team in the 200-yard medley relay consisted of sophomore Kayden Trafford, sophomore Kai Maestas, sophomore Doug Pearce and senior Cameron Batty. They completed the race in 1:49.19, which is an automatic qualifying time for the CIF meet. The second-place time of 2:01.39 was posted by freshman Ian Ritchie, senior Jackson Richards, sophomore Teagan Cannon and freshman Jonathan Nelson.

Pearce posted an automatic qualifying time of 1:50.24 to win the 200-yard freestyle race. Ritchie finished second at 2:01.95 and senior Caden McCormies had the third-place time of 2:09.78. Maestas won the 200-yard individual medley with a consideration time of 2:09.45, Trafford became the second finisher 2:17.40 after the start of the race and sophomore Johnny Norman took third place with a 2:47.04 performance. An automatic time of 22.49 seconds gave Batty the 50-yard freestyle win, senior Derek Enns had a consideration time of 23.18 seconds and took second place, and senior Joe Moran achieved consideration status as well as third place for his time of 23.59 seconds. Pearce won the 100-yard butterfly with an automatic time of 55.07 seconds, junior Caden Edison finished in 1:02.08 for second place and Cannon earned third-place team points after finishing his four laps in 1:09.01. Batty received automatic CIF qualifying status in the 100-yard freestyle by winning that race in 49.62 seconds, Enns obtained second place and a consideration mark of 51.72 seconds and Moran had a consideration time of 52.16 seconds which was worth third place in that event. Richards won the 500-yard freestyle in 5:56.77 and Nelson was second with a time of 6:18.11.

Fallbrook’s first-place 200-yard freestyle relay team of Batty, Enns, Moran and Maestas had an automatic time of 1:34.03. The second-place quartet of senior Chase Glick, senior Owen Hearn, Richards and Eidson took 1:43.96.

Trafford won the 100-yard backstroke with a consideration time of 1:05.58, Ritchie had a consolation time of 1:07.23 and finished second and Glick took third place and finished in 1:11.70. Maestas won the 100-yard breaststroke while posting an automatic time of 1:04.81, Hearn had the second-place mark of 1:13.64 and Richards finished in 1:14.89 for third place.

The winning 400-yard freestyle relay team of Enns, Moran, Ritchie and Pearce had a consideration time of 3:39.92. Hearn, Cannon, Norman and Nelson gave Fallbrook second-place points and had a time of 4:11.20.

“We have a lot of young new swimmers on our team,” Richardson said.

The victory gave Fallbrook a 4-0 record in dual meet competition for the 2020 season.

Joe Naiman can be reached by email at [email protected].