On Friday and Saturday, January 23-24, the Bears competed with the top swimmers in Metro Atlanta as a dress rehearsal for the kind of competition they are going to be seeing at state. This was the first year Cambridge participated in the meet and it pushed many of the team's best to their limits and beyond.
Diving Recap
On Friday afternoon, the Cambridge divers traveled to Westminster to compete. Among the teams present in diving were the top divers from the hosting team, Westminster, and also Marist, Wesleyan, Lovette, St Pius and other top ranking dive programs.
The first to compete were the girls. Cambridge diver, Maddie Chaloux, was seeded fourth going into the competition among the 31 girls present. Chaloux had a solid warm up with her dives looking incredibly solid and clean. In the first round of the championship format, all divers complete all five of their first dives. Their scores are calculated by totaling up the scores given to them by the judges and then that score being multiplied by their degree of difficulty (DD). They take the top 14 scores to move on to the semi-final round. If you make it to the semi-final round, you complete three more dives and then the top 10 scores are sent to the finals round.
Chaloux had a number of very challenging dives in the first round to guarantee that it would get her into the semi-finals round and it did. Her scores earned her a place among the top 14 girls moving on to the next round. Going into the semi-finals she was in 7th place. In the semi-finals round, Chaloux continued to dive well, but unfortunately her degree of difficulty was not strong enough and she was inched out of the finals round by two points. Chaloux plans to rearrange her dives so she has more challenging dives in her semi-final round dives, which will help her at state to qualify to complete all of her dives. We will see Chaloux in two weeks competing at Georgia Tech.
The boys competed next. There were 28 boys in the competition and Cambridge divers Simon Finlayson and Jack Braglia were among them. Going into the competition, Finlayson was ranked 8th overall and Braglia was ranked 17th. Both divers were attempting a new sequence of dives with some more challenging elements added into their program. Finlayson had already qualified for state, so he was attempting to run a rehearsal of what he was going to do for state. Braglia was hoping this would be the meet he would join his teammates on the state roster. In the first round, both divers were doing well, especially Braglia. He had greatly improved his dive execution and continued to earn solid scores for all five of his dives. At the end of the preliminary round, Braglia was slightly ahead of Finlayson. When the numbers were calculated, Braglia missed the semi-final round by 0.3 points! Finlayson was less than a point away as well. Unfortunately, that meant that the competition was over for both divers. With some more practice in the off-season, Braglia is sure to make state next season. Finlayson will have one more chance this season by joining Chaloux at the state competition in two weeks. They will be competing at Georgia Tech on February 5th (Thursday), the day before the swimming events.
Come cheer on your divers at state!
Girls' Swim Recap
With steep competition and difficult time requirements, only half of the girls' team traveled to Westminster on Saturday to compete. Among the girls, were the three state-qualified relay teams that hoped to improve their times one last time to put themselves in a stronger place going into the state meet.
The first relay to go was the medley relay (Nicole Detjen, Katie Fishman, Angela Ho, Katie Durden). In the preliminary round, the girls came out with a 15th place finish. In the championship format, the top 20 teams get to come back in the evening for finals. If a team places 11 – 20, they are in the consolation or B-final, while the top 10 go on to the A-final and earn points for the team. Even though they weren't in the top 10, they still got another opportunity to swim, and in finals and came out with a final placing of 16th.
In the 200 free, four girls competed for Cambridge. Ella McIlain came out taking 42nd place and then Chloe Paskins came out in 32nd place. Darby Goodyear dropped four seconds from her season best time in the preliminary round to win her heat and finish 25th overall, just missing the top 20. Caley Cramer dropped some time in her 200-free and finished in 9th overall, while qualified her for the A-finals that evening. She finished finals in 10th place, earning points for the Bears.
In the 200-individual medley, Sarah Moore competed for Cambridge and shaved off a little over a second to swim a season best time and come in 50th place overall. Katie Fishman finished in 36th, and Sydney Swenton came in 31st.
In the 50-freestyle, Nicole Detjen finished in 57th overall, and senior and co-captain Lauren Holliday finished her last regular season swim in 47th place. Ashley Dale Henslee finished in 43rd overall and Alex Newcomer finished in 38th.
In the 100-butterfly, Sophia LaMarca finished in 54th, Anna Salvadori finished in 50th, Chloe Paskins finished in 47th and senior Amanda Seibert finished her last regular season swim in 45th place.
In the 100-freestyle, Ashley Dale Henslee took 48th place overall, senior Angela Ho finished in 47th, Paula Morales, with her third meet in a row of best times, swam another season best time to finish in 42nd place, and then Alex Newcomer in 29th with a new individual best time.
In the 200-freestyle relay, the girls' team (Katie Durden, Angela Ho, Alex Newcomer, Caley Cramer) swam a new season best time of 1:48.40, which not only improves their state seed, but also created a new school record by over a second. Their finish placed them in 10th overall, which allowed them to return to finals in the A-finals heat. They walked away with 10th place in the finals round.
In the 100-backstroke, Darby Goodyear continued to have a great day and shaved off more time from her personal best to finish in 39th overall. Nicole Detjen finished in 26th overall, Katie Durden finished in 25th overall, and Caley Cramer swam an incredible race to drop over a 1.5-seconds to swim a time of 1:04.44 in prelims. Her time earned her a third state qualifying time of the season and also an opportunity to return to finals in the evening with a seed of 12th place. In finals, Cramer walked away with 16th place overall. Cramer will now have to choose among the 50-free, 100-free and the 100-back to swim at state (she will only be able to swim two of the three qualifying events along with two relays).
In the 100-breaststroke, Lindsey Robinson finished in 45th, Sarah Moore finished in 43rd, Sydney Swenton finished in 22nd place and placed her as an alternate going into finals. Teammate Katie Fishman swam just off her season-best time in prelims to qualify to return to finals in 17th place. Fishman finished finals in 19th place.
In the 400-freestyle relay, the girls' team (Angela Ho, Katie Durden, Alex Newcomer, Caley Cramer) swam close to their best time to earn a 13th place finish. In the finals round, the girls' team walked away in 14th place overall. The race marked Angela Ho's last regular season swim of her high school career.
Boys' Swim Recap
In the medley relay, the boys' team (Erek Humm, Kyle Daniel, Jason Yang, Jason Hink) came out of the preliminary round in 16th place, but they improved in the finals round and moved into 14th place as their final standing. All boys were able to improve their splits to make that time possible.
In the 200-free, four boys competed for the Bears. Connor Christiansen dropped a little time to finish in 52nd overall. Senior and captain Noah Sannes dropped over 2-seconds from his best time. With an incredibly solid swim, he finished in 49th overall. Jake Todd finished in 32nd place. Austin Daniel swam a season-best time by over three seconds to swim an incredible 1:48.17 in prelims to put him in 2nd place going into finals. Unfortunately, after a full day of exhausting competition, he was not able to hold that place in finals and finished in 6th overall, which still earned points for the team and got him a new improved seed time for the state meet.
In the 200-individual medley, Connor Fleming came in 43rd overall and Tony Guerra, with a new season-best time by over three-seconds, took 31st place.
In the 50-freestyle, Sebastian swam a new personal best time in his last swim of his senior season. Teammate Nick Mirchandani had a solid swim that put him in 73rd, Matt Hogan finished in 60th, and Jason Hink finished in 54th with a new best time.
In the 100-butterfly, Connor Fleming dropped over two-seconds to finish 44th overall, followed by teammate Kyle Daniel in 43rd, and Jason Yang in 34th.
In the 100-freestyle, Connor Christiansen finished in 51st overall, Matt Hogan finished in 38th overall, and Jason Hink in 36th. Austin Daniel swam a new season best time of 50.10 to improve his state qualifying time by almost a full second. His time qualified him to finish in 7th overall and return to finals. In the finals round, Daniel walked away with 9th place.
The 200-freestyle relay followed a similar trend as the girls' team. The relay team (Jake Todd, Erek Humm, Matt Hogan, Austin Daniel) swam a solid time to earn them 15th place out of prelims to return and swim again in finals. In the finals round, the boys' team shaved off time to swim a new season best time, a new seed for the state meet, and a new school record with a time of 1:36.80. Their performance improved their placing to 14th overall.
In the 100-backstroke, Tony Guerra continued to have a great day and shaved off almost two-seconds from his event to finish in 35th overall. Sean McGinty finished in 32nd, Erek Humm finished in 31st, and Jake Todd finished in 24th. Todd will be swimming this event at the state meet in two weeks along with Humm.
In the 100-breaststroke, senior David Le dropped over half a second from his best time to finish in 59th place in his last swim event of his high school career. Fellow senior and co-captain Sebastian Lara swam right next to Le in their last event to drop over 3.5-seconds from his best time. Jason Yang finished in 27th place and Kyle Daniel dropped almost a full second to finish in 26th.
In the 400-freestyle relay, the boys' team (Jake Todd, Matt Hogan, Erek Humm, Austin Daniel) came out of prelims in 15th place overall. With an opportunity to return to finals, the boys' team sought to improve their position. Swimming a new season-best time, a new state time and a new school record, the boys' team improved to 12th place overall with a time of 3:32.90. The boys' were leading the consolation heat the majority of the race, and were just barely out-touched when they went to finish the race, but their time showed significant improvement.
Seniors Recap
The swim and dive team is incredibly thankful to our seniors. All of the seniors have been with the team for the last three years and are so special and important to the culture of the team. They will be greatly missed as they move on to bigger things.
Lauren Holliday – Lauren Holliday has swam everything from the 500-free to the 100-backstroke to the sprint freestyle events throughout her three years on the team. She has always been willing to swim whatever the team needed her to from year to year. Holliday has been on the state roster since her sophomore year and will be on the roster this year as well. Additionally, Holliday has been a captain on the swim/dive team since her sophomore year. Holliday is still waiting to hear back from many of her top college choices and weighing her options for her post-high school plans. She will be greatly missed by her teammates. Holliday will travel with the state meet team to Georgia Tech in two weeks.
Angela Ho – Angela Ho has had an incredibly successful high school career. Ho has swum everything from the individual medley, to freestyle and everything in between. She has been on the state roster for the last three years and she has been captain the last year. Ho has a tremendous work ethic and works harder than almost anyone else on the team. All of her teammates would tell you that she is the best person to share a lane with and is always someone you can count on for anything. Her incredibly accomplished high school career has earned her admission to Georgia Tech, where she will be attending in the fall. She will be greatly missed and difficult to replace. She will be swimming in all three relays at the state meet in two weeks, so her season is not yet over!
Amanda Seibert – Amanda Seibert has been another individual that has been a silent leader on the team. Her actions always spoke louder than her words and she, without complaint, swam whatever her team needed her to from freestyle to backstroke to butterfly. Seibert has had an incredibly successful high school career and is incredibly bright and so she has afforded herself many opportunities moving forward into the next phase of her life. The team is grateful to have had her consistency and dedication these last three years and she will be greatly missed.
Noah Sannes – Noah Sannes, along with Lauren Holliday, has been a captain on the swim/dive team since his sophomore year. Sannes has a work ethic unlike anyone else and repeatedly sets an example for his teammates. No matter what, Noah will do whatever is needed of him whether it is in leadership or in swimming events, which mainly included all variations of freestyle events. Sannes has been on the state meet roster for two years and finished his last meet with a personal best performance. Sannes has had an incredibly accomplished high school career and will be attending Duke University in the fall, which alone speaks to the kind of person he is on and off the pool deck. Sannes will be greatly missed by his teammates in terms of his kindness, dedication and friendship. He will certainly be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.
Sebastian Lara – Sebastian Lara has been a captain on the swim/dive team for the last two years and has been a significant contributor on the team. Lara has primarily swam freestyle and breaststroke the last three years on the team. The first year, Lara even contributed the artwork for the team shirts and other spirit gear. Lara has been busy in his high school career with his academic endeavors as well as his athletic and artistic accomplishments. Lara has many schools to choose from for his post-high school options, which is telling of the kind of student and person he is. Lara will be greatly missed by his teammates. Lara was able to finish his high school swim career with new personal best times in both of his events.
David Le – David Le has been a contributor to the swim/dive team since his sophomore year, mainly in freestyle and breaststroke. Le has had an incredibly accomplished high school career, along with his other senior teammates, and also has plans to attend Georgia Tech in the fall. Le had many schools to choose from as his academic record speaks for itself, but Le has also shown dedication and determination in his time on the swim/dive team. His teammates will miss him tremendously for his kindness, silliness and his consistently positive attitude. Le was able to finish his last meet of his career with new personal best times alongside his teammates.
