The sun shone brightly over the Ventura Aquatics Center Wednesday afternoon as Foothill’s swim team competed against Santa Paula High School in their second and final home match. The boys’ swim team won with a score of 114-40 and the girls’ team won with a score of 108-52.
The sun shone brightly over the Ventura Aquatics Center on Wednesday afternoon as Foothill’s swim team competed against Santa Paula High School in their second and final home match. The boys’ swim team won with a score of 114-40 and the girls’ team won with a score of 108-52.
The meet kicked off in Foothill’s favor when freshman Lily Armstrong, sophomores Megan McKillican and Lezly Plahn and senior Ariana Singer took first place in the 200-meter medley relay.
The girls’ team steadily continued their swim to triumph with Armstrong winning first place in the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 2:28.20, and McKillican finishing in second place.
Plahn swam to first place in the 100-meter freestyle with a time of 59.74, and freshman Josie Thorp came in second with a time of 1:00.57.
“We’ve come a long way since the beginning of the season and the boys’ varsity is doing really good, [as well as] the varsity girls. The junior varsity team, [considering] that they’re just starting swim team, is doing exceptionally well. It’s really cool to see everyone improve,” Plahn said.
Although there were many remarkable performances by the swimmers, Plahn pointed out a few who stood out among the rest. The list included sophomore Josh Modglin, Thorpe, Armstrong, and McKillican.
Thorp earned first place in the 200-meter freestyle with a time of 2:10.10. Plahn came in second in the same event with a time of 2:12.17.
In the 100-meter backstroke, Armstrong finished first with 1:11.15 on the clock, Jaina Malach came in second with 1:12.95, and junior Sienna Romero finished third in 1:25.44. McKillican brought home second place in the 100-meter butterfly with a time of 1:12.38.
Plahn also noted that all the freestylers “did exceptionally well.”
“A bunch of people got [automatics] and consideration [times] for CIF,” she said.
According to Assistant Coach Thomas Maires, the 400-meter girls’ freestyle relay was “really solid,” as they swam to first with a time of 4:01.56.
On the boys’ team, Modglin conquered the 200-meter individual medley in 2:10.35, and earned first place in the 100-meter freestyle with a time of 57.83.
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Modglin and his relay team, consisting of freshmen Anson Tan and Devin Pennington, and senior Simon Christie, also finished first in the 200-meter medley relay.
In the laborious 500-meter freestyle, Christie finished first in 6:12.84. Sophomore Nico Ford came in second place with 6:16.46, and senior Ethan Tan earned third place with a time of 6:17.35.
Christie also earned first place in the 100-meter butterfly with a time of 1:06.79.
“We excelled in a lot of things. I think we did really well in all of our events,” he said.
Despite the landslide victories, junior Vanessa Villalpando believes that the team needs to improve on their endurance. However, the meet still “went really well” overall, she said.
According to Villalpando, her teammates have always cheered each other on during meets in the past, however the energy was more vibrant during this one’s.
“Our teammates are working well together; we’re blending more as a team,” she said.
With Frontier League finals coming up next week, Maires said that the team just needs to “clean up” on their turns at the wall and “make sure [they’re] cheering on one another because that’s all [they] can do” at this point.
“With the players that we have, I believe we can win the [Frontier League],” Villalpando said.
The Foothill swim team’s Frontier League finals will be on May 5 and 7 at Fillmore High School.
