For the past 3 years, the Mesa Swim team has hosted an annual weekend meet against the Mount San Antonio team. According to coach Nathan Resch, the teams are in different leagues so they have a meet each year for some healthy competition. For the past two years, Mesa has come out victorious but this year they were defeated by the Mount San Antonio team, making their record 2-1.
The meet took place over two days, Friday March 22nd and Saturday March 23rd. There were a few extremely close calls on Saturday’s races, such as when Nasreddine El Akkad was defeated by Ryan Lin in the 100 yard breaststroke 1:02.04 to 1:02.50, meaning he lost by less than one second. Another example of an incredibly close race was the men’s 50 yard freestyle, where Jack Fischer came up just .19 seconds short against Vinny Edwards. Although it wasn’t a win, the 1650 yard freestyle swim was particularly impressive. 1650 yards equates to roughly a mile, and Misael Chinchilla completed it fastest of the Mesa swimmers, in just 20:06.98. Sean Proctor excelled on both Friday and Saturday, and won multiple dive competitions.
In the relay race, Mesa swimmers Rayoan Martin and Young Lenski faced up against Mount San Antonio swimmers Banh Bensing-Ruiz and Pitre Urias. The Olympian’s came up a mere 14 seconds short, with the final times being 1:44.99 to 1:58.34.
The Mount San Antonio team outnumbered Mesa in almost every heat. In the men’s 200 yard butterfly stroke, the Mounties had 4 swimmers competing while the Olympians only had one swimmer, Diego Tejeda. In the men’s 200 yard backstroke, Mesa was outnumbered 7 to 2. Swimmer Nasreddine El Akkad commented on the meet, saying, “We joined our efforts together. We did our best as a team. However, Mount San Antonio has a few more swimmers than us, which allowed them to win. We didn’t let that affect us and we came back with great swims a week later at the Riverside International.”
The next opportunity to support the both the men and women’s Mesa swim teams will be at the Southern California Diving State Qualifier held at El Camino College. This is a two day event, starting on April 12th.
