Natasha Dardashti social media editor
Qualified swimmers swam in a CIF meet atRiverside Community College last week for two days. Overall, the team placed seventh.
Girls swim placed sixth, which is four places higher than last year. Boys swim placed 11th, 17 places higher than last year.
UCLA bound senior Amy Okada was awarded with her 6th individual CIF title in the 50m freestyle and in the 100m butterfly, placing first in both. She nearly broke the division record with 53.96, missing it by .03 of a second.
“Actually, it feels amazing to win another title because I’ve been working so hard to achieve my goals,” Okada said. “By far, this year we have achieved the greatest success as a team.”
Another CIF record was set by Gregory Ayzenberg, Daniel Choi, Shota Ishizawa and Seongmin Youn. The relay quartet finished fifth with splits of 48.0, 48.9, 49.5 and 49.6.
“[We won] because we all worked hard and the results showed that,” Youn said.
Freshman Alborz Hosseini did not feel nervous about the fact he was swimming at a college campus or at a CIF meet, even though it was his first time.
“I wasn’t nervous because I [have] been to a bigger meet, but it was the first time racing my club teammate. That was kind of hard, to race my teammate from [a] different high school,” he said.
Breaststroke swimmer John Kim jokingly said that the reason there were so many Beverly swimmers at CIF was because “more people qualified.” However, he followed up with a more serious answer.
“We had prominent freshmen and the relay was strongly supported by the older veterans. [That is] a weird way to call the juniors and seniors, but I feel it’s quite fitting,” Kim said.
Hosseini stated that the “best part” of the meet was when he raced Daniel from the “Damn Daniel” meme.
“I beat him, then after the race I wanted to tell him, ‘Good job.’ I was like, ‘I know you,’ then he was like, ‘Yeah everyone knows me,’” Hosseini said.
Despite the fact she has spent four years on a high school team, Okada feels this year has been the greatest.
“I also want to say that it’s been a great four years being on the team, and ending my last swim season with smiles and school records is great,” Okada said. “Out of all my four years, this year everybody became a lot closer and worked closer as a team.”