Girls swim 6th at CIF meet - Emma Thomas, freestyle relay teams break school records

Fallbrook High School’s girls swim team finished sixth among Division I schools at the CIF meet May 24 at Granite Hills High School.

“I was happy,” said Fallbrook coach Sean Redmond.

The Warriors were eighth as a team in 2013. “We really felt that we were better than that for this year,” Redmond said.

The team’s goal was to be one of the top six teams. “It was nice that we were able to break into that,” Redmond said.

Sixth is the highest finish this century for a Fallbrook girls team at the CIF meet.

The CIF meet included swim preliminaries May 21 at Granite Hills, the diving championships May 23 at Mesa College, and the swim finals May 24 at Granite Hills. Fallbrook’s only female diver, freshman Sarah Draves, placed 11th in her CIF meet debut with a score of 160.10 points on six dives.

The top six times in each event at the preliminaries earned lanes in the championship finals while the next six times qualified those swimmers or relay teams for the consolation finals. The three individuals and relay teams who qualified for the championship finals all set school records in the process.

“At CIF we had some good swims,” Redmond said.

Emma Thomas had the best individual showing for the Warriors. The sophomore finished third in the 100-yard butterfly with a time of 57.70 seconds. In the preliminaries, she swam that event in 57.94 seconds to break the school record of 58.74 seconds set by Pam Capin in 1988.

Fallbrook’s 200-yard freestyle relay team of sophomore Taylor Dowden, sophomore Jordann Heimback, freshman Amilia Thomas, and Emma Thomas also broke the previous school record in the preliminaries and lowered it even further in the championship final. In 2012, Sarah Bushnell, Amanda Williams, Chelsea Sommer, and Aimee Steen won the CIF consolation race in 1:42.67. Fallbrook’s 2014 quartet completed the preliminary race in 1:41.23 to set a new record, and in the finals this year’s group had a time of 1:40.02 which also earned second-place points.

Dowden, Heimback, Amilia Thomas, and Emma Thomas swam the 400-yard freestyle relay preliminaries in 3:42.45 to earn a lane in the championship race. In the finals, Redmond used Dowden, Heimback, sophomore Ariana Young, and Emma Thomas. “Ariana had a faster 100 time than what Amilia did,” Redmond said.

The switch paid off for the Warriors, who completed the race in 3:39.53. That gave Fallbrook fourth place while giving Dowden, Heimback, Young, and Thomas a new school record. “They’re all sophomores, so that was exciting to watch,” Redmond said.

The previous school record for the 400-yard freestyle relay was 3:42.19, which was set in 2010 by Erin McCook, Emma Baldwin, Alex Rodriguez, and Bushnell.

Emma Thomas also qualified for the championship race in the 50-yard freestyle due to her preliminaries time of 25.15 seconds. In the finals, her time of 25.51 seconds placed sixth.

In the 200-yard medley relay event, Fallbrook was represented by Young, senior Kierstin Dowden, senior Morgan Brown, and Steen, who was a senior this year. Their time of 1:57.92 in the preliminaries earned a lane in the consolation race, where their time of 1:59.40 gave them 11th place.

Heimback and Young tied for 10th place in the 100-yard freestyle race with identical times of 56.04 seconds. Heimback swam the preliminary race in 55.33 seconds and Young completed the May 21 event in 55.94 seconds.

Heimback also placed 10th in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 2:01.24. She swam her preliminary heat in 1:59.20.

Young placed 12th in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:03 in the finals. She had qualified for the consolation race with a preliminary time of 1:01.79.