Frederick County Public Schools held their Swimming and Diving Championships on Friday, February 7th and Saturday, February 8th. They were held at Walkersville High School, with diving competitions taking place on the 7th and swimming competitions taking place on the 8th. Both Urbana’s boys team and girls team won the FCPS Championship, with Oakdale coming in at a close second. While Catoctin did not have any divers on Friday, our swimmers did extremely well. I would like to give a special shout out to Simone Burrier and Aiden Barrera. Simone swam the 100 yard freestyle at counties for the first time ever! And, Aiden was able to place eighth in the 200 yard freestyle — scoring points for the boys team — and place tenth in the 500 yard freestyle.
There were also many personal best times to go around. Chase Jackson beat his best time in the 200 yard freestyle by four seconds and also swam in the 500 yard freestyle. Joanna Genemans competed in the 100 yard breaststroke and had a personal best of four seconds in the 200 yard freestyle. Shae Long swam in the 200 yard freestyle, and the 100 yard backstroke, with a personal best of three seconds in the backstroke. Jack Fordham also swam in the 100 yard backstroke, beating his best time by one second, and in the 100 yard butterfly, with a three second personal best time. Anna Code beat her best 50 yard freestyle time by .2 seconds, and her 100 yard freestyle time by one second. Kendall Caballero-Zuniga had a .2 second personal best time in the 50 yard freestyle, and a one second personal best in the 100 yard freestyle. Blake Smith also beat his best freestyle and backstroke times, with a .3 second best in the 100 yard breaststroke and one second best in the 50 yard freestyle. As for myself, I competed in the 50 yard freestyle, and in the 200 yard freestyle, beating my best 200 yard freestyle time by nine seconds. Kayla Delcid had a two second personal best in the 200 yard Individual Medley and also competed in the 100 yard freestyle. Lastly, Aiden Barrera beat his best time in the 200 yard freestyle by four seconds, and his best time in the 500 yard freestyle by eight seconds.
Those that swam at counties for Catoctin performed very well, with everyone setting new personal best times in at least one of their events. Blake Smith explains this phenomenon perfectly:,
“It’s a really fun meet to swim in, because the energy level is much higher, the competition is more even, and you get to interact with swimmers from every team in the county all at once.” The swim team hopes to experience the same kind of energy at regionals on Saturday, February 15th, so that everyone can continue to swim their best times.
