Preston Thue
Staff Writer
The Mustangs’ girls swim team placed first while the boys placed second in the South Bay Invitational meet March 25 at home. Costa competed against various schools, including Redondo Union, El Segundo and West High.
Freshman Alex Crisera lead the charge, placing first in the 100-meter backstroke at 58:67 seconds.
“Friday was a good day for the team,” Crisera said. “We have a good chance at continuing to win through Bay League and CIF meets.”
In the girls 200-meter freestyle relay, Crisera, freshman Riley Farrell, senior Yen Nguyen, and sophomore Sophie Kuehler all broke the meet record, coming in at 1:40.48. Junior Lauren Nielsen, Kuehler, Barnhill, and Crisera also set a 3.39.09 meet record in the girls 400-meter freestyle relay. The relay team beat Redondo’s preexisting record of 3:44.67.
“It’s exciting that everyone is swimming this fast so early in the season,” Barnhill said. “We knew we could do it when we saw how close we were to the record time in prelims.”
Freshman Kai Bathurst broke a meet record for the boys 100-meter backstroke, finishing at 53.90 seconds. Bathurst also placed second in the boys 200-meter individual medley at 1:59.51.
“It felt good to break the record,” Bathurst said. “There were a lot of other good performances too, and I think everyone was happy with this meet.”
Senior Matt Woicik placed first in the boys 500-meter freestyle at 4:42:10 earning him a spot in California Interscholastic Federation Meet. Woicik also placed second in the 200-meter freestyle at 1:47.86.
“Our guys and girls did a great job, and we took a lot of first and second-place finishes,” Woicik said.
The girls are now 3-0 overall, while the boys are 2-1 overall. The next meet was on Thursday against North Torrance High School at Costa but the results were not available at the time of publication.
“It was awesome to race against some fast schools like Palisades; it really tested us as a team, and we ended up with a great result,” Woicik said.
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