The Central California Conference (CCC) for swimming occurred on Friday and Saturday April 27-28. Pitman walked on the pool deck hoping for the best possible outcome. We were striving for first but doing our best is always what we are looking for. Friday was the qualifying round, the top sixteen swimmers from each event moved on to the next day. The top eight were the final round and the eight after that were competing in the consolation final round.
Overall, Pitman girls got second place with 462.5 points and Pitman boys came in third place. We walked on and off the pool deck as a team. We made sure to cheer on every single swimmer. We are not just a team but a family. Pitman went down in the history books on Saturday because Kamarin Waite, Hailee Baldwin, Leanna Jasek-Rysdahl, and Emma Burke broke the record in the 200 medley relay with a 1:54.79. Individually, these swimmers are great but together, they are unstoppable. Emma Burke, the anchor of the relay and a sophomore at Pitman High was very grateful to be a part of history. “It’s a great group of girls and I still can’t believe I was lucky enough to be on a relay with them. We all worked really hard and it’s a great feeling when that finally pays off.”
Many of the Pitman swimmers collected best times in their swim races. Leanna Jasek-Rysdahl got her best time in the hundred backstroke with a 1:04, Quinten Day in the hundred butterfly got 57 seconds, Max Rodriguez got a 1:03 in the hundred breaststroke. HaileeBaldwinwon both of her events, the two hundred individual medley (2:11) and the hundred breaststroke (1:05), putting her as fourth all-time best in the individual medley and second all-time best in the hundred breaststroke.
AlthoughMercedis our top competitor, their swimmers had some great races. A junior fromMerced, Brett Fogelberg, got a 21.65 fifty freestyle. His comment was “I know oxygen deprivation doesn’t set in in only twenty-one seconds so I knew I could make it. I usually breathe once on the way back. I was screaming for air, but I stayed down and finished.” He did an impressive fifty in twenty-one seconds. Alison Miller is the girl to beat in the five hundred freestyle event. She is a junior at Merced High who accomplished first on Saturday with a 5:17.67. “It is pretty important to us. A lot of us have been on varsity all three years. We want to keep the three-peat going.” Miller said about her team having the CCC title for the past three years.Mercedhas a great swim team, and so does Pitman. Next season I hope to take down the Merced Bears and prove Pitman has what it takes.
Swimming is a difficult sport from fitting into the extremely tight suits to swimming with lack of oxygen. Swimming is not just a sport, it is a type of art, from the way your curve your arm and the way you kick, to the way you turn on the wall. Swimming is when you pull and kick until you feel like jello. This is what Pitman did, we gave every race everything we had, but so did every other school. Individual races can make or break the team score. Sometimes doing your personal best just isn’t good enough to win the race. Losing only makes you want to win that much more, sometimes you have to be knocked down to get back up and overcome the situation. Pitman is picking themselves up and dusting themselves off for sections and next year’s swim season. We will dive into the next swim season and make a splash that nobody will forget.
