MSJ Swim race to 1st seed at Encinal Invitational

By Abha Kulkarni & Daphne Senecal Staff Writers

On March 4, MSJ Swim competed in a varsity relay meet at Encinal Junior & Senior High against fve other teams. Despite the obstacles, the team came frst in the majority of their events, resulting in an overall frst place win at the meet with a total of 416 points.

Although it was a varsity event, many of the members of the junior varsity team were chosen to compete due to a shortage of varsity swimmers. Despite this, athletes performed well in most races. Athletes also had to compete in the heavy rain and hail, making it diffcult to stay warm and in shape for each event. Some more unique and uncommon events were also introduced in the Encinal swim meet, such as the Mixed 500 Yard Freestyle Relay and co-ed relays. “[Most events] are separated by boys and girls but for this meet we had co-ed relays which is cool because we never get to do that,” Varsity Co-Captain

Senior Jasper Zhang said. The competition ended with a wild card relay, where the yardage and the stroke was chosen at random. For this specifc meet, the random event ended up being a Mixed 200 Yard Medley Relay, where the MSJ Swim team came in second.

As the races began, the Warriors started off strong, winning frst place with Sophomore Michelle Chen and Junior Audrey Lim winning the Girls 2x50 Yard Freestyle Relay by fve seconds.

In the Boys 2x50 Yard Backstroke Relay Freshman Riley Ta and Junior Justin Ho won the event by three seconds. In the following Boys 2x100 Yard Freestyle Relay, Mixed 2x100 Yard Freestyle Relay, and Boys 2x100 Yard Backstroke Relay, the Warriors placed second, but quickly returned to frst seed.

One of the team’s most dominating races came during the Girls 2x100 Yard Medley Relay with Sophomore Amy Sun and Junior Lucina Tonoyan winning by a margin of 14.68 seconds. Meanwhile, MSJ’s closest match ended in a loss to Encinal by only a second, putting them