By RUTUJA SABNIS
Staff Writer
Girls Varsity Swim beat Beckman with a score 353-139 and Boys Varsity Swim beat Beckman with a score 376-116. The second league meet of the season left UHS in fourth place behind the Irvine Vaqueros.
The meet proceeded with UHS dominating every event throughout the day in all levels–Open, Junior Varsity, and Varsity. Alondra Ortiz (Jr.) won the 500 freestyle, which is a twenty lap event, touching in fifteen to twenty seconds ahead of the other girls. Aidan Yong (Jr.) won the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:49.
Team Captain Vanessa Yang (Sr.) said, “There were a lot of great swims out there today and everyone worked really hard.”
Claire Jang (Jr.) and Aaron Lee (So.) both won the 100 butterfly, gaining six points each for University. However, these were only some of the wins during the meet; there were several other swimmers who won their individual events.
Madi Wakita (Sr.) said, “The team has really improved in all levels; we’ve had so many time drops since intersquad and it’s only been the second meet.”
The swim team hopes to win CIF’s this year. Angela Yan (So.) said, “We all knew beating Beckman meant we were one step closer to qualifying for CIF so everyone brought their ‘A’ game and we’re super happy to come out with a win.”
This meet, even though there was a good outcome, had a bitter end. A moment of silence was held in honor of Scott Hinman, the Irvine High School swimming and water polo coach, who passed away recently at age 61 after a heart attack.
The next home meet will be held on April 12 against Northwood. “We worked really hard and performed really well and [this meet] was a great start to League,” Matthew Ionescu (Sr.) said.
