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By Loren Kopff
@LorenKopff on Twitter
The Cerritos High boys swimming team once again was a main force in the CIF-Southern Section Division 3 championships last Thursday at the Riverside Aquatic Complex. While the Dons did not claim a championship, they picked up 171 points, good enough for sixth place out of 49 schools. Whitney High had 31 points while Gahr High had seven points. The Cerritos girls team picked up 14 points. Last season, the Cerritos boys finished in seventh place in the division out of 39 schools
Senior Castro Cameron came away the biggest winner, finishing first in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:30.42 and second in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:40.12. He was also part of the 200-yard freestyle relay team that finished in fourth place with a time of 1:28.08. Senior Alex Rodriguez and juniors Jedidiah Confinco and Justin Sutanto were the other members of that relay team. At the end of the divisional finals, Cameron finished off a first place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay team that had a time of 3:08.28. That relay team also consisted of senior Vighnesh Muley, Rodriguez and Sutanto.
Rodriguez also claimed sixth place in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 4:38.00 while Sutanto took home seventh place in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 47.82.
Cameron has advanced to the state championships in the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle. In the latter, he has the 13thbest time in the state out of 40 swimmers who will be vying to become a state champion in that event. The 400-yard freestyle relay team also advanced to the state finals.
Whitney High sophomore Alex Mo has also qualified for the state championships as he is sixth out of 28 high school divers in the state in the 1-meter diving. He had a score of 523.10 in the divisional finals.
TRACK AND FIELD
The divisional championships will take place at El Camino College on Saturday where a handful of area athletes hope to advance to the Master’s Meet. In Division 2, Gahr High’s Jazminn Parrish will compete in the 200-meter race as well as the 400-meter race. In last Saturday’s divisional preliminaries, Parrish had the fourth best time in the 200 (24.87) and the seventh best time in the 400 (56.85).
In Division 3, Artesia High sophomore Daniel Chung jumped 13 feet in the pole vault while Valley Christian High is well represented in Division 4. The 4 x 400 relay team had the third best time in the preliminaries at 4:07.13 while juniors Emma Spresney and Kathryn Tamminga advance in the 300 hurdles. Tamminga was first with a time of 46.10 while Spresney had a time of 47.93, good for fourth best in the division. In the discus, junior Olivia Vande Vegte had the eighth best mark in the preliminaries at 101-2. Also in Division 4, Whitney junior Ola Ogan had a mark of 16-3 in the long jump in the preliminaries.
BASEBALL
Cerritos was upset by Riverside Poly High 3-1 in nine innings in a Division 3 first round game last Thursday. The Dons, who were the 605 League champions and had won 14 of their last 15 games entering the playoffs, conclude the season at 21-8.
Even though Gahr won the San Gabriel Valley League and had won 12 of its last 15 games of the regular season, the Gladiators drew a Division 1 first round road game where they fell to Palm Desert High 8-3 last Thursday. It was the second time this season that Gahr (13-16-1) had lost to Palm Desert. It’s also the first time since 2008 any Gahr baseball team has finished with a losing record.
SOFTBALL
Artesia’s dream season came to a sudden end in a Division 4 first round game as the co-605 League champions were blanked by Jurupa Hills 5-0 last Thursday. Artesia, which had won nine straight games and were ranked fifth in the division, finishes the season at 17-4. It’s the program’s best record in at least 22 years and first time this season Artesia has been shutout.
Whitney has never been past the second round of the playoffs since 2000, but after the Lady Wildcats blanked Redlands Adventist Academy 9-0 this past Tuesday, the second ranked team in Division 7 moved on to the quarterfinals. Whitney (15-8) travelled to sixth ranked Westridge High on May 9 and a win will put Whitney in the semifinals for the first time since 2000 where the team would host either Academy/Academic Excellence High or third ranked Mayfield High on Tuesday. This is the third trip to the quarterfinals in the program’s history.
