Swim Season Wrap Up

Despite losing multiple juniors and seniors from last year, Samo’s boys’ and girls’ swim teams had one of their most successful years in recent memory.“We didn’t have as many upperclassman as we did last year, but we ended up winning in three out of four divisions,” swim captain Lauren Laborde  (’14) said. “By working so hard together and having a relatively smaller team, we became one of the closest swim teams I’ve ever been a part of.”According to swim and water polo coach Matt Flanders, individual swimmers supported each other unconditionally this year, and several individual players received their best personal times. As a result, both boys’ and girls’ varsity swim teams won first place in this year’s Pioneer League, while girls’ froshsoph team also came in 1st and boys’ froshsoph came in 2nd.“There were no real losses this year,” Flanders said. “We dominated every meet, though the sweetest win was at South Torrance. I think we had a great mix of club swimmers and water polo players who swam on the team that made us deep in both the specialty events and the freestyle sprints.”Many of Samo’s swimmers qualified to compete at League Finals, and a select few participated in CIF. Among those who qualified for both tournaments was swim captain Elaine Lai-Lakusta (’14), who said she was proud of the team’s enduring success. According to Lai-Lakusta, nobody could have predicted a better end to her four years of swimming for Samo.“It was an incredibly amazing way to end my senior year. We went in with a goal and we came out with it and some great swims along the way,” Lai-Lakusta said. “It was a great last season with my teammates, and I’m really appreciative to have gotten to swim and become closer with all of them as the season progressed.”Lai-Lakusta continues to explain that swimming Leagues are split up into prelims and finals, and that everyone swims their events in prelims and then the top 14 of those swimmers have a chance to compete at finals.“Only the points at finals count towards our team score. So our strategy was just getting as many swimmers as possible into finals to try and get every point possible,” Lai-Lauksta said. “ Generally a major problem is not working together as a team, but this year we were quite focused and ready going into leagues with one common goal: bring home that trophy.”Though not all four levels of swim emerged victorious in league, Flanders emphasized the significance of individual achievements and the potential his swimmers continue to display.“The stand-outs who qualified for CIF were Brendan Casey who was 2nd in 500 free, Cathy Gomez who came in 12th in 500 free and Dmitriy Zhevelev who finished 2nd in the 100 back,” Flanders said. “For next year, we hope to win league in all divisions and qualify more swimmers for CIF.”