Following a successful season as league champions, the varsity swim team dominated the waters in CIF. However, their victories did not continue into the state championships.

“We are proud of how far we came as a swim team, and we are especially proud of the swimmers who made it to state,” sophomore Hanna Alrez, the swim team manager, said.

Diamond Bar High School swim team took first place overall in the league finals on April 24. Competing against five other schools, the Brahmas came out on top with 1,317 points, leading the second place team, Don Lugo, by 745 points.

“We had more competition [at CIF] than [at] league,” head coach Darlys Ankeny said. “The other schools just didn’t have the depth that we had, so they had just one or two fast people, maybe three, and we had a lot more backup.”

In winning league, the team broke a wide variety of both school and league swim records, including 14 Mt Baldy League finals records and three for DBHS. Freshman Kaimin Tsuei, sophomore Vincent Cheng and senior Kevin Vargas each set a new Diamond Bar record for the girls 100-yard backstroke, boys 100-yard backstroke and boys 100-yard breaststroke respectively, along with several other records for the league.

 The swimmers traveled to and from Riverside City College, where the CIF Diving competition, qualifiers for the diving state competition, CIF prelims and CIF finals were all held.

In the first of these competitions,  sophomore Luke Huang placed first and freshman Mackenzie Kim, second. Additionally, the latter of the two broke her own diving record, 420.55, with a score of 470.80. They both qualified to dive at the state competition as well.

The next events, CIF prelims and finals, spanned seven days from April 30 to May 3. At prelims, 24 swimmers from Diamond Bar qualified to move on to CIF finals, with qualifying swimmers in all but four events. Several Brahmas also set a new record for CIF division four and the school, with seniors Nathan Chow and Vargas and sophomores Cheng and Timothy Jia swimming a 1:35.98 200-yard medley relay. Vargas also set a 1:50.47 record for the division in the 200-yard individual medley.

At CIF finals the same week, Diamond Bar took first place by a wide margin overall, scoring 876 points to the second place school, Beaumont’s, 385. Alone, both boys and girls placed first with 574 and 302 points, respectively.

“[DBHS] did receive some negative comments from the audience because [the school] should be placed in a higher division, but …were placed in the Mt. Baldy division resulting in an unfair competition on both sides,” Alrez explained.

On May 9, members of the team left for Clovis West High School to swim in the State Championships. At the competition, the only athlete to place was Tsuei, who took 14th in the girls 100-yard backstroke. Overall, the girls came out 65th out of 75 schools and the boys did not place.

“[State championships] was a great experience,” Ankeny said. “There…kids there this year, faster than it had been in the past.”