Swimming sweeps senior day
ORANGE, Calif — Despite the lighthearted attitude of a senior day, the Panther swimmers and divers brought intensity to the Allred Aquatics Center. The men and women took down Redlands and the College of Idaho Yotes 216-83 and 245-25 respectively, and the men captured their first ever win over Redlands in program history, 154-140, and a 201-82 win over the Yotes.
They started off strong with Simon Jacob's performance in the 400 medley. Swimming the breaststroke, he notched a top-10 split to win the event and qualify the men to swim in the top heat at the SCIAC championships. Jacobs also won the 100 breast and 100 free.
Redlands kept it close, but a first and second place finish in the 400 IM from Brandon Leung and Noah Kim sealed the deal late in the meet.
The women continued their dominance as well, winning their third straight meet in convincing fashion. Avery Hall won both the 100 free and the 50 free. One of the five seniors, Hannah Parulan, took home the 100 and 200 back, and helped the all-senior relay team — consisting of herself, Meghan Kluck, Riley Brownfield and Ella McShane — to a second place finish in the 200 free relay. Brownfield also won the 500 and 200 freestyles.
Kiana Tanizaki-Hudson, Inez Amer, Sophia Ryu, Sydney Snider, and Emily Kinney round out the women's first place finishers.
In diving, Jake Randazzo took home both the one-meter and three-meter men's victories, scoring 303.85 off the short board and 308.8 off the high dive. For the women, Grace Littrell placed second in the one-meter and Mckenzie Abbott placed second in the three-meter.
After diving and the first handful of swim events, the seniors were honored with speeches from teammates, and a first-ever non-swimmer relay. Football, cross country, water polo, and dive took to the lanes in an eight-person 200 free relay to see which athletes reign supreme — in the pool at least.
To no one's surprise Water Polo won, but dark horse Cross Country finished second with dive and football coming in with the photo finish for last place with dive getting the slight edge.
Despite the senior day activities, swimming and diving is not done quite yet. They will travel to Occidental next weekend for the final regular season meet of the season, then gear up for the SCIAC Championships after a week's rest.
By Joe Perrino
Assistant SID / Recreation Sports Manager
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