Brahmas start off as champions

SWIM With the boys undefeated last year, the girls aim to follow in their footsteps this season.

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Calvin Ru

Senior Kathleen Gani competes in a butterfly event in a match against Walnut.

Michelle Ki, Editor-in-Chief

After a successful season last year, Diamond Bar High School’s swim team is back in the pool with hopes of breaking more records.

The team’s first preseason meet was on March 5 in which all the schools in the Palomares League competed with league relays. Afterward, the Brahmas had one of their first dual meets on March 7-8 against Walnut High School and Chino Hills High School, respectively.  Both girls and boys won against Chino Hills, but only the boys won Walnut.

The team also brought home the Championship Title of the High School Winterfest Championships hosted by Mt. SAC on March 10-11. This two-day championship meet featured 34 high schools and over 1,100 swimmers from all over California and Nevada. At the end of the meet, DB varsity boys were crowned champions of the meet while varsity boys and girls also won the overall combined team championship. Coach Darlys Ankeny said he is aiming for both girls and boys to be undefeated this season, since only boys were undefeated last year.

Though swim is optimistic about going far this season, co-captain Prestin Li believes that there is still much to improve in the time being.

“The areas we need to work on most are organization and communication. It’s really hard with a team of over 100 students, so we try our best to communicate updates and announcements as efficiently as possible, but even then it can get a bit chaotic. A lot of seniors graduated last year so our JV [team] is a lot weaker than it used to be and varsity boys needs a solid backstroker and butterflier,” Li said.

Senior captain Kathleen Gani, who has committed to swim at University of Pacific this fall, said that the team will have no problem carrying on the team next year as there are many talented underclassmen, including juniors Kelsey Loyd, Kelly Chang, David Wang, Kevin Vargas and Michael Lee.

“They come up to me and ask if I need help with anything all the time, and are always open to suggestions,” Gani said.