Swimming is one of the many spring sports that takes place at Pacifica High School. From having to go to six AM practices to having fun as a team on meet days, swimming is definitely a challenging but rewarding sport to be in. From jumping off the board at the sound of the buzzer into cold water to finishing laps breathless and exhausted, swimmers give everything they have! Pacifica High School’s swim coaches are Travis Dasnoit, Sheri Neely, Francisco Ramos, and Nick Sanchez.

Among the many swimmers on the 2019 season swim team are seniors Yaneli Calderon, Sara Mascorro, Lauren Mora, Mayra Ornelas, Stefanie Covarrubias, Anne Carpio, Hiram Martinez, Lindsey Valdez, David Garcia, Robert Mcshirley, juniors Ramon Rodriguez, Tony Ochoa, Eileen Ramos, Tanya Bui, Kamille Romero, and sophomore Romeo Tirado. Practices and meets are quite intense as swimmers continually strive to improve their times even by milliseconds and finish their laps as fast as they can. Swimmers practice proper breathing techniques, warm-ups, and cool-downs. They also try to master different swimming strokes such as breaststroke, butterfly stroke, backstroke, and freestyle.

Among the many events to compete in include the individual medley, medley relays, and freestyle relays. The sequence of the medley relay includes a backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle stroke while an individual medley follows the order of a butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle stroke. Among all the types of swimming strokes, the butterfly stroke is one of the hardest to master since it requires strength and good technique. While swimming is a lot of hard work, the team has fun through team building exercises such as team huddles and making human pyramids.

Many of the swimmers have goals of not being disqualified and trying to beat their personal records through training hard to continually become faster and stronger. They hope to qualify for CIF and have fun and grow closer as a team this season. The coaches have high expectations for their swimmers but know that their swimmers are up to the challenge. As the spring swim season starts, we wish the swimmers good luck to reach their goals of making it to CIF and beating their personal records!