Warriors fifth at CIF meet

The Fallbrook High School boys swim team placed fifth among Division I schools at the CIF meet April 24 at Granite Hills High School.

The Warriors finished the meet with 95 team points. Carlsbad took fourth place with 121 points. Westview had the sixth-place total of 71 points.

"It's very satisfying," Fallbrook coach Bill Richardson said of fifth place. "For one we weren't expected to have a meet at all, so we didn't prepare."

On March 26, the CIF San Diego Section announced that the CIF meet would be cancelled, but that decision was reversed April 15. That was the day of the Valley League swim meet, so when the Warriors swam those races the swimmers expected that their season was over.

Richardson gave the boys April 16 off. Richardson is also Fallbrook's boys water polo coach, and water polo practice began April 19. "They swam off of a week of water polo. We didn't taper for CIF," Richardson said.

The Warriors tapered for the league meet. "We did a little short taper on a short season," Richardson said.

The normal procedure for a CIF meet is to have swim preliminaries, swim finals, and diving on three different days. This year they were all on the same day. The number of preliminaries swimmers in each event was reduced from 32 to 24, the number of championship finals race or consolation finals race participants was reduced from 16 to 12 as was the number of scoring positions, and only 12 divers participated.

"We as a group decided that we would go to CIF, have fun," Richardson said.

A swimmer may compete in up to four events in a meet with diving being considered as one of the events. A swimmer is limited to two individual events but may compete in one individual event and all three relay races. The preliminaries and finals were considered a single meet.

Richardson chose to utilize sophomore Ian Ritchie and juniors Brock Bushnell, Kai Maestas, and Doug Pearce in all three relay events. "It's so competitive that the relays really pay off as far as points," Richardson said.

The decision paid off with two of those relay quartets participating in the championship final and the third reaching the consolation final. Bushnell added team points for reaching the championship final in the 50-yard freestyle, Pearce was in the 100-yard butterfly championship race, and Maestas won the 100-yard breaststroke consolation final.

The only senior on the boys swim team, Donovan Taylor, was sixth among Division I boys divers. "All the divers that finished ahead of him were all year-round club divers," said Fallbrook diving coach Sean Redmond. "For him to finish in the top six and get a medal, I think that was a great achievement for him."

Taylor accumulated 207.10 points on his six dives.

Bushnell, Maestas, Ritchie, and Pearce swam the 200-yard freestyle relay in that order. Their best time prior to the CIF meet seeded them 12th, but a time of 1:29.95 in the preliminaries gave them fifth among Division I quartets.

Torrey Pines won the championship race with a time of 1:28.34. Fallbrook finished second with a time of 1:29.03. "Swam really, really well," Richardson said.

"Torrey Pines is a team which is built on really high-end club swimmers that don't play water polo," Richardson said. "To be right there with them is pretty good."

Pearce, Ritchie, Maestas, and Bushnell swam the 400-yard freestyle in that order. Their preliminaries time of 3:16.03 placed them fourth. They had a time of 3:17.16 in the finals but took third place.

The 200-yard medley relay team of Ritchie, Maestas, Pearce, and Bushnell placed eighth in both the preliminaries and the finals. They swam the preliminaries in 1:42.60 and the finals in 1:41.19.

A time of 21.70 seconds placed Bushnell fifth in the 50-yard freestyle preliminaries. He maintained fifth place by completing his finals race in 21.75 seconds.

Pearce had a preliminaries’ time of 51.64 seconds in the 100-yard butterfly to place fifth. He fell to sixth in the championship race and completed his two laps in 51.82 seconds.

Maestas was eighth in the 100-yard breaststroke preliminaries with a time of 1:00.75. He improved his time in the finals to 1:00.10 and gained one position.

Ritchie swam the 200-yard freestyle in the preliminaries, but his time of 1:52.99 placed 19th.

"To do that with three juniors and a sophomore really, I think, bodes well for the future," Richardson said.

The coronavirus shutdown canceled the 2020 CIF meet. Fallbrook placed 10th at the 2019 CIF meet and fourth at the 2018 meet.