With few swimmers, girls’ team struggles early on

It appears the girls’ swim team will be swimming uphill this spring. With only 16 varsity swimmers, the Falcons fell victims to a lopsided 128-45 loss to Gunn on March 22.

“The team is lacking, and it’s definitely noticeable because the other teams almost always have twice as many swimmers as we do,” senior Stephanie Chen said.

At a meet, each swimmer can swim a maximum of four events, with at most two of them being individual events. Points go to the five fastest swimmers per event, with a maximum of three swimmers scoring per team. 

With fewer swimmers, the Falcons are at a disadvantage.

“They’ve been swimming pretty well, but the team is small,” coach Christian Bonner said. 

The team is also having to fill holes left by graduation. The team lost key members such as Rebecca Chen, Serena Chan, Natalie Cheung and Stephanie Reyes. Because they all swam breaststroke and butterfly, those events are now lacking.

This loss makes the team record 0-2 in addition to a loss against Palo Alto 116-54 on March 15.

The considerably lower scores at the meet against Gunn can be attributed to key swimmers missing parts of the meet for the orchestra’s California Music Education Association (CMEA) festival. Junior Janey Heyman, who swam the 100-yard butterfly at the first meet against Palo Alto, also missed the second meet against Gunn because of a choir trip. This left a huge hole in the lineup that not many could fill. 

Despite the team’s recent low scores, Bonner said the Falcons may be able to reverse course.

“Gunn and Palo Alto are two of the fastest teams in our league,” Bonner said. “People made CCS cuts at the first meet. There is only one other real high point scoring team this year.”

Sophomore Yayla Sezginer made the CCS cuts for the 500-yard freestyle and the 100 yard-backstroke, and Chen made the CCS cuts for the 500-yard freestyle and the 200-yard freestyle. Heyman was within tenths of a second for both the 100-yard butterfly and the 200-yard individual medley.

The team has a meet against both Monta Vista and Los Altos on April 25.