By Judd Liebman

An undermanned girls’ swim team opened its season with three non-league losses, but bounced back with a 93-77 victory over Notre Dame to start league. The boys’ team also defeated Notre Dame 118-52 starting its league season during its opening four meet win streak, which was snapped by Crespi on April 14.

The girls’ squad will have to compete without star swimmer Reyna Calderon ’12, who left the team recently. Calderon would have been the fourth girl on CIF contending relay teams. Kassie Shannon ’14 has taken Calderon’s place on the relay teams.

The girls’ side fell to Alemany and Louisville to give them a 1-2 record in league and a 1-5 record overall.

“The loss to Louisville was really disappointing,” Captain Catherine Wang ’11 said. “We didn’t swim poorly, we were just undermanned.”

Sydney Wong ’14 has stepped up for the girls’ team. Wong swims the distance events for the team which include the 500-meter freestyle and 200-meter individual medley races.

The boys’ team fell to Loyola 102-68 on April 21. In this loss, Andy Liu ’14 set the school record in the 100-meter backstroke race with a time of 55.80.

Both teams are now coached by Cheyne Bloch.

“The transition to Coach Bloch has been as smooth as I could imagine,” Wang said. “He meshes well with both the younger and veteran swimmers.”

Many potential male swimmers are unable to compete for the boys’ team this year because of club water polo obligations, Brian Graziano ’12 said. The dearth of swimmers has hurt the team this year, Captain Nick Duckwiler ’11 said.

“We lose a lot of the depth of the swim team because without them we have a small team,” Duckwiler said. “We can’t field a lot of the events. It’s just a matter of points, relays are a lot of points and we can’t field all of the teams.”

Both teams had a meet against the Chaminade Eagles on Tuesday at Zanuck Swim Stadium. The results were unavailable at press time.