Niki's House: Swim Finals

May 6th was swim finals. Chaffey went into finals being undefeated and had enough swimmers qualify during prelims that it should have been no contest to win. The worst that could happen was that Don Lugo girls would win finals leaving a tie for league championship.

The first event is the 4x50 medley relay. We had won this race in prelims and expected a win here.

As you can see Tyaan pulls ahead of the Don Lugo girl and Chaffey wins the relay. However this is when we learned what the day was going to be like. We had an official that we hadn't had all season. He was a horrible human being and spent the next few hours treating everyone on the pool deck like they were idiots. He talked to the coaches extremely rudely, a lot of times into the megaphone although they were only a few feet away (making sure everyone else at the pool could hear how 'important' he was). I didn't see 1 disqualification during a varsity race all season long. During finals this guy probably disqualified a dozen swimmers, maybe more. it was ridiculous. He acted as if he was officiating at an olympic meet. These poor kids were afraid to sneeze or they'd be DQ'd. (For example, he DQ'd a girl because AFTER the race was over, after having some teammates try to help her out of the pool, she swam under the lane lines to the ladder to get out. Said she should have asked him before the race...) He DQ'd Tyaan after this event. I saw him do it when she was 3/4 of the way back to the block when she passed the girl next to her. At first he said it was because her feet weren't even on her kick, then he told her coach that it had something to do with her turn off of the wall. Since this is her event, that she has trained for 3 years to do, and the guy was changing his story, I can GUARANTEE that she didn't deserve it. But, once the call was made there was nothing we could do. She was heartbroken of course, feeling like she'd let the team down. They didn't earn any points for that event and started the meet in last place. Don Lugo took first place and started ahead.

Tyaan's next event was the 200 free. She did her best to pull herself together since it was the event right after the medley and she was still pretty upset. She was undefeated in this all year, and she won it this day as well. So she got her first 1st place medal.

Next was her 100 fly. We were positive that the official would DQ her again because it was the same stroke that she swam during the medley. She was worried about turns and kicks but I told her to just swim it like she always did. If she tried to change after years of practice it would just slow her down, and if he was going to be unfair there was nothing she could do about it. Here is her race.

She finished 3rd. I was impressed because I knew she was emotionally exhausted, and worried about being DQ'd the whole time. The official didn't DQ her, in fact he told her coach that her stroke was "perfect". So she got a 3rd place medal for this event.

The last event was the 4x100 free relay. Nobody in league could come close to our relay team in this event. They had already qualified for CIF (State championships). They easily took 1st place, earning Ty her third medal, her second 1st place.

Unfortunately with the DQ's (he also DQ'd our breaststroker who took 1st place in her event so we lost those points as well) we BARELY lost to Don Lugo. The Don Lugo coach even said to give the league championship to Chaffey because they deserved it. It was very obvious that our girls got cheated. Worst was that Tyaan and the other girl who should have won 1st place in the 100 breast were both seniors and this was their last swim competition. It's heartbreaking that this is how it had to end. So the league championship was a tie. Chaffey's coach turned Tyaan's name in for league MVP. If Chaffey had won finals she would have gotten it, however it was decided that because of the tie Chaffey would take the League Champion Plaque and Don Lugo would get MVP. Tyaan really deserved it though.

Chaffey boys won league, and this is the first time any school has ever won boys and girls championships in the same year. It's the first time for Chaffey ever, not just in swim, but any sport...ever.

Here is the girls team with their plaque.