Coyote swimmers fall to CMAC champs
Wendy Alexander/The Madera Tribune
Madera’s Abby Poore swims the breaststroke during Friday’s dual meet with Sanger. Poore placed second to teammate Katie Ylarregui and also set a personal record in the 50-yard freestyle.
The Madera Coyotes faced a much deeper and faster Sanger Apaches team to close out the regular season at McAlister Pool.
However, that didn’t mean the Coyotes had their highlights, led by Abby Poore and the 200-yard freestyle relay team.
Although the Apaches won both the boys and girls dual meets while also claiming the County/Metro Athletic Conference title, the Coyotes tested the Apaches throughout Friday afternoon.
The Madera 200-yard girls medley relay team opened the meet by edging out the Apaches by 0.68 seconds. Leah Resendez, Katie Ylarregui, Marisol Alvarez and Abby Poore out touched Sanger at the end.
Garrin Hatfield battled Sanger’s top swimmer in the boys 200-yard freestyle and came up four second short to place second to lead three straight Coyotes to the wall. Will Prim was third and William Magdic was fourth.
Despite placing third in the 50-yard freestyle , Poore was celebrating because she lowered her personal best time to 28.79 seconds.
Seth Rollins and Prim led a 1-2 Coyote finish in the boys 50-yard freestyle. Rollins finished in 22.60 seconds while Prim was right behind at 24.22 seconds.
Resendez led from the start of the 100-yard freestyle and held off a late charging Sanger swimmer to win by 1.15 seconds.
Sanger finished just ahead of two Coyote swimmers in the boys 100 yard freestyle. Rollins was just 1:04 seconds back for second while Hatfield was a half-second behind Rollins for third.
The Coyotes took control of the 200-yard freestyle relay and never let up. Ylarregui gave the Coyotes the early lead. Poore maintained the lead, but Sanger caught up to Resendez as both swimmers touched at the same time for the anchor exchange. Marisol Alvarez outswam Sanger to finish with a time of 1:50.96 while Sanger was second at 1:51.65.
The Coyote boys made it a sweep of the 200-yard freestyle relay. Hatfield gave the Coyotes a 0.8 second lead. Prim kept the lead at the second leg. Ben Prim had a good swim to open the lead to 0.7 seconds. Rollins closed out the race with a 50-yard swim of 22 seconds even, which was faster than he swam to win the 50-yard-freestyle. Rollins led the Coyotes to win the race with a time of 1:34.50, a second-a-half ahead of Sanger.
Resendez led the 100-yard backstroke at the first turn, but fell back at the second and closed a little to the wall, but was second by 0.88 seconds.
In their final swim in McAlister Pool, Ylarregui and Poor pulled out a 1-2 finish in the 100 breaststroke.
Ylarregui led from start to finish to win the race with a time of 1:14.50. Poore was right behind to place second in a time of 1:22.99,
In the diving competition, Madera’s Arianna Igler and Cienna Laird led a 1-2 finish for the girls team. Daniel Garcia was just one point out of third place in the boys diving event.
The swim team will shift gears to water polo for about a month before closing out the swim season with the postseason after the water polo season is concluded.
