Swim team in high spirits after impressive season

The Samo boys’ and girls’ swim teams completed the season by win- ning league and placing ninth at California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) championship meet. By having a mix of club swimmers, club and Samo water polo players and strictly swimmers, the team was able to improve this year, according to coach Matthew Flanders.

“The team had a great year of steady improvement across all levels,” Flanders said. “We’ve had the most successful season we’ve had in a long time. Based on the amount of qualification for league finals and the num- ber of people who qualified for CIF, it was very successful.”Several swimmers placed at CIF, including Brandon Bertolino (’16), who swam the 100-yard freestyle at a time of 47.57 seconds and placed second in CIF.

Samo sent four swimmers to the championship round of the boys’ 400- yard freestyle relay; Xander Lee (’17), Evan Blaney (’16), Ryan Keith (’16) and Bertolino swam Samo to a time of 3:17.36.Girls’ varsity captain Amalie Luneng-Solli (’17) swam the 50 freestyle with a time of 25.6 seconds, as well as the 200-yard free relay and the 200-yard medley relay.

“I improved a lot on my technique, like rotating my shoulders so that my arms covered more distance, and worked a lot on my turns to get off the wall faster,” Luneng-Solli said.According to Flanders, the team is looking to improve by increasing club swimming membership.

“We’ve got a problem with [club teams] because many clubs in Santa Monica don’t encourage their kids to swim high school, which is problematic,” Flanders said.Though Samo swimming hopes to make some alterations in future season, Flanders is satisfied with how the team performed.