By Michael Aronson
The younger than last year’s swim team showcased their ability to compete collectively throughout their season according to boys’ captain Patrick Edwards ’11 and girls’ co-captain Catherine Wang ’11.
After winning its first four meets, the boys’ team finished its season with an overall record of 6-2 and a league record of 3-2 and the girls finished with an overall record of 2-6 and a league record of 2-3.
The boys started their season with two blowout league wins against Canyon 118-52 and Notre Dame 140-30. Edwards took a leadership role on the young team and was satisfied with how they swam.
“As a team, I think we came together when we needed to most even though it was difficult because swimming is such an individual sport,” Edwards said.
Wang was disappointed with the team’s finish considering they had been at the top of their league for the past few years.
“After beating Notre Dame we went downhill,” Wang said. “We lost several seniors after last year who were a large part of our team.”
In the league finals at Los Angeles Valley College on May 5, Wang won the 200-yard Individual Medley, Shannon Heh ’12 won the 100-yard butterfly event, and Kassie Shannon ’13 won the 50-yard freestyle race.
The boys’ team placed 41st and the girls’ team finished 42nd with a total of five swimmers who qualified for the CIF Masters.
At CIF, swimmers needed to place in the top 16 in their event to move on to CIF Masters. The 4×200-yard freestyle boys’ relay team of Patrick Kang ’12, Mitchell Oei ’11, Max Quilici ’12, Eusene Lee ’12 placed 15th to move on to the masters meet. Heh just barely qualified for the Masters, finishing 16th in the 100-yard butterfly.
At the Master’s meet in Irvine, Nick Edel ’13 took Oei’s spot on the relay team. It finished ninth out of 24 in the final meet with a time of 1:28.70, coming close to the team’s previous best time of 1:28.61.
“I was excited about getting a spot on the team to compete in Irvine. Being that I’m only a sophomore, it was a real honor to swim in the Masters meet,” Edel said.
Heh was the only girl swimmer for Harvard-Westlake in the meet and she finished 13th of 24 swimmers in the final race with a 100 butterfly time of 59.49. Overall, Heh finished 13th out of 51 entries in her event.
