Eight swimmers end Fallbrook High School careers early

This year’s Fallbrook High School swim team included seven seniors whose high school careers ended early due to the shutdown of the school and the cancellation of CIF spring sports.

Cameron Batty, Derek Enns, Chase Glick, Owen Hearn, Caden McCormies, Joe Moran and Jackson Richards are Fallbrook’s seven seniors. The team also included exchange student Lukas Holme, a junior, who has returned to Denmark.

“Super disappointing for everyone, especially our seniors. A number of our boys were actually doing well,” Fallbrook coach Bill Richardson said.

The Warriors were 4-0 in their dual meets before the cancellation of the season.

“I think we had a good chance of going undefeated,” Richardson said.

Individual or relay team performances rather than team results qualify swimmers for the CIF meet, and many of Fallbrook’s swimmers had posted CIF meet qualifying times.

“Unfortunately, they won’t get an opportunity,” Richardson said.

The 2020 swimmers also will not have the ability to compete for the team league championship or for individual league championships.

Although none of the seniors had previously won a Valley League championship in an individual event, Moran swam the freestyle to anchor the winning 200-yard medley relay quartet in 2019; Enns was the anchor of last year’s winning 400-yard freestyle relay, and Batty was on the winning 400-yard freestyle relay team both in 2019 and 2018 while also participating in the first-place 200-yard freestyle relay team in 2017.

“They would have made a really nice 200 and 400 free relay,” Richardson said of his three swimmers with previous league championships. “I think we probably could have been a top three team at CIF in those two events.”

Due to a shoulder injury, Batty competed in only one meet last year as a test of whether he was healthy enough to swim a full season. So Batty only had four meets, including a tri-meet, in his final two high school years. The shoulder injury also limited his 2017 season.

“He missed most of his freshman year,” Richardson said.

Batty thus only had one full season with the Warriors’ swim team.

“He finally came out healthy this year,” Richardson said.

Richards also spent four years on the Fallbrook varsity. Enns, Glick, Hearn and Moran were on the Warriors’ junior varsity in 2017 but spent their final three years on the varsity squad.

McCormies played football as a freshman and participated in spring practice rather than swimming before switching to water polo for his sophomore year and continuing his aquatics with the swim team for three seasons.

The extent of Batty’s recovery from his injury will be a factor in whether or not he swims in college.

“It still bothers him. He hasn't completely recovered from it,” Richardson said.

Enns and Moran are also hoping to swim in college.

“Some of them may end up swimming,” Richardson said.

Richardson doubts that the cancellation of the 2020 season will adversely affect the potential college careers of any Fallbrook swimmer.

“I don’t think anybody was being heavily recruited at this point,” he said.

The swimmers will receive varsity letters for the 2020 season.

“They’re swimming at the meets. They’re scoring points. They’re doing all the work,” Richardson said.

Richardson will also lose this year’s senior leadership.

“Seniors always kind of set a tone for the team,” he said.

Other than Holme, the only juniors in this year’s program are Caden Eidson, Ryan Kendall, Donny Lopez and diver Donovan Taylor.

“We’re actually a very young team,” Richardson said. “What will be our junior class next year will be the bulk of our team.”

Richardson has his team members select the team captains at the beginning of the season.