Swimming season is in full swing, and with two matches left before the Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League finals, the teams from Scotts Valley and San Lorenzo Valley high schools are set to go head to head this Friday in Felton.
Scotts Valley High
According to Mike Ayers, now in his 12th year coaching the Falcon swimmers, this year’s squad — boys and girls — is a young one.
“Most of the talented swimmers are underclassmen,” he said. “Matt Braverman is the only senior.”
Last year, the boys finished in sixth place in SCCAL and Connor Lemmon was a double league champion in both the 200 and 500 freestyle as a freshman.
This year, Ayers said he expects Lemmon to repeat, as he has already qualified for CCS in the 500 with a time of 4:58; his best time being a sub-4:50.
“Connor could win any race he enters,” he said.
In addition to Lemmon, Braverman is swimming well in the freestyle sprint events, and freshman Colin Elmer — the sole Falcon diver — is expected to finish well.
On the girls’ side, after finishing 4th in SCCAL last year — just missing beating Soquel for third — Ayers said he expects that standout sophomore Madelyn Saranto will follow her top five finish last year with a top three performance in the 200 free and 100 butterfly.
“We have a new freshman phenom this year, Linnea Bird, who has not lost a 100 breastroke event this season,” Ayers said, adding that she “will be a threat to win SCCAL in that event and the 200 individual medley.
Saranto and Bird are joined by the returning sprint freestyler Victoria Gouw and juniors Nelleke Meerman and Nicole Rimac, expected to be contenders in the 200 medley and 200 freestyle relays.
For the season, Ayers predicted that it will be difficult to compete with large programs such as at Soquel and Aptos highs, not for lack of skill, but lack of swimmers.
“We have a lot of quality but not a lot of quantity,” he said. “But, we tend to fare better at SCCAL finals, where numbers don’t matter as much unless they are high-scoring swimmers.”
San Lorenzo Valley High
The Cougar girls’ team, which features only one underclassman, faces an uphill battle in the rest of the season against powerful foes from Soquel and Aptos.
“What I’m looking for in finals is just competition,” said Head Coach Wally Brondstatter. “We put a lot of emphasis in competition and not just the winning or the points.”
Among the standouts this year, Brondstatter said, have been distance swimmers Marie Schroepp, and junior Carly Zilge, along with freestyler and sprinter Hannah Kersten.
For the boys’ team, Head Coach Matt Troxell said that one of the biggest standouts has been freshman Jared Rembal, who Troxell described as a “utility swimmer.”
“Pretty much any event he has to swim, he’ll do,” he said. “Sprinting or distance, he’s just talented at everything.”
“To be a freshman on our team, that doesn’t happen very often.”
Senior Ryland Denny, who typically competes in butterfly and individual medley, as well as senior Marshall Williams, who competes in the breaststroke, are two other standouts on the Cougar boys’ squad.
As the season comes to a close, Troxell noted that this is the time when coaches can see how far their charges have improved since the beginning of the year.
“It’s always fun to see how much improvement we’ll have in these last few weeks,” he said.
