The Diamond Bar High School varsity swim team continued to hold onto its top spots in the Palomares League this year.  Finishing their season off strongly, the Brahmas pulled far ahead of the competition with boys varsity winning League Champions in first place while girls varsity tied for second.

While League Prelims and Finals took place at Mt. SAC, the swimmers competed in six different relays in the CIF Prelims and Finals at Riverside College; Varsity Girls Women Senior 200 Medley, Varsity Boys Men Senior 200 Medley, Varsity Girls Women Senior 200 Free, Varsity Boys Men Senior 200 Free, Varsity Girls Women Senior 400 Free, and Varsity Boys Men 400 Free.  

On May 14, at the Southern Sectional Finals, the relay team of sophomores Michael Lee, William Huang, Brian Li and junior Prestin Li placed 12th in Boys 400 Freestyle.

The Girls 200 Medley Relay team placed second, while junior Kathleen Gani placed third in the Girls 200 IM Finals. In that same event, sophomore Kelsey Lloyd placed tenth. She also achieved the title of CIF champion, placing first in Girls 100 Breast while senior Jenna Lloyd placed second. Jenna Lloyd finished seventh in the Girls 50 Free. Freshman Kevin Vargas placed fourth in the Boys 200 IM as well as fourth in Boys 500 Free. In the Girls 100 Butterfly, sophomore Kelly Cheng placed eighth; she was also ranked 18th in Girls 200 Free, in which Gani placed 11th.  In Boys 200 Free, sophomore Michael Lee got 11th, also placing fifth place in Boys 500 Free. As the only DBHS swimmer to compete in diving, junior Prestin Li ranked tenth in Boys 1 Meter Diving as well as 18th in Boys 100 Breast. Brian Li also secured 13th place in Boys 100 Breast. William Huang placed 18th in Boys 50 Free

For the CIF State Meet, the same relay team achieved eighth place in Girls 200 Medley Relay and tenth place in Girls 400 Free Relay. In Girls 200 IM, Gani managed to secure fifth place and Kelsey Lloyd 16th place. Kelsey also ranked fifth for Girls 100 Breast while Jenna Lloyd placed eighth. Lee ranked 16th in Boys 500 Free

”I’m especially proud of the people who we were able to take back to league finals.  With a hundred and thirty kids going into league finals in prelims, we got to take around a hundred kids back,” head coach Darlys Ankeny said.

According to Ankeny, the Glendora Tartans were the girls’ biggest competitor, while the Ayala Bulldogs were the boys’ strongest opposing team.  However, both the boys and girls teams finished  quite well in league, with the boys being 442 points ahead of the second place team and the girls finishing with 192 points more than the second place team behind them.

This year’s newly introduced weekly rotation of captains will continue to be used within the swim team next year as well, since Ankeny stated that it worked out well for the students.

”I’m also trying to form our own dive team here, though I don’t know whether or not I’ll be successful.  We’d first have to find a place that actually has diving boards that our students can use,” Ankeny said.

Ankeny mentioned sophomores Ashley To, Brian Song, and Derek Su as well as freshmen Annie Wu and Grace Ge as other swimmers who had outstanding seasons.