Preston Thue
Staff Writer
In the California Interscholastic Federation finals on May 14, Mira Costa’s boys swim shattered the 35-year standing record for 500 freestyle, along with many other records.
The Mustangs’ swim team broke four Costa records in the Southern Section CIF Finals at the Riverside Aquatics Complex. The boys finished 26th, improving on last year’s 36th-place finish, and the girls finished 11th, also improving its 35th-place finish from last year.
“Our improvement since CIF last year was affected by the larger group of fast swimmers this year,” senior Sydney Hong said.
Seniors Ian Campbell and Matthew Woicik, sophomore Andrew White, and freshman Kai Bathurst swam the 400 freestyle relay in 3.12.53 minutes, breaking their preliminary time by .98 seconds and beating the record set in 1977. The team went into the CIF preliminaries and finals with the goal of beating the record and focused on warming up well to improve its chances, Woicik said.
“We were ecstatic about breaking the record in the prelims and even happier to break that record in the finals,” Woicik said.
Bill Randall set the 500 freestyle record at 4.37.21 minutes 35 years ago. Woicik finished at 4.36.32 minutes, placing sixth, and breaking Randall’s 1981 record. Woicik didn’t think about breaking the record while swimming because he wanted to focus on getting a medal, he said.
“I believe I swam the race to the best of my ability,” Woicik said.
For the girls, freshman Alexandra Crisera placed third in the 100 freestyle, at 50.21 seconds, breaking Costa’s previous record that she set at preliminaries by about half a second. She was cheered on by her relay team, which consisted of junior Katherine Barnhill, sophomore Sophia Kuehler and freshman Riley Farrell, as she anchored the 200 freestyle. The girls placed fifth, coming in at 1.38.21, breaking the record by a second.
“We hoped to place top three, but we have a greater possibility of achieving that next year,” Crisera said.
The girls finished the season 7-1 overall and 4-0 in Bay League, while the boys finished the season 5-3 overall and 2-2 in Bay League.
“Everyone performed well and stepped up to improve our placing from last year,” White said.
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