The reign is over. After ten years of dominance in the MCAL’s, the girl’s swim and dive team lost the pennant to rival Marin Catholic in the championships last Saturday. At the same time that the old Redwood dynasty fell, the boys team got their first taste of victory in 13 years, winning the championships for the first time since 2001.
The boys beat Terra Linda with 385 points to Terra Linda’s 347. Tam trailed close behind with 336. The win marked a change of fortunes for the boys team, which came in third last year after losing to Tam by only one point and losing to Terra Linda by only 12. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and getting so close to victory last year pushed the team harder this year.
“It’s a tough feeling when you only lose by 12 points out of 400,” said senior team captain Tom Cavanaugh. “We’ve been thinking about that all year, and how this year was going to be the year we pull through and win it all.”
During the rain-soaked preliminary meet on Thursday, the guys seemed poised to take a relatively easy victory. The qualifying times putting the Giants ahead in most events, but four disqualifications cast a shadow of doubt over their chances at success.
“When I heard about the four [disqualifications] I was pretty pessimistic for a while,” Cavanaugh said.
Swimmers Mitch Barrow, Giorgio Cico, Max Glenn, and Brookes Roenisch were all disqualified in one of their respective events.
“Both Mitch and Giorgio would have definitely been in the top eight for their events, which would have cushioned our win a little bit more. When they got disqualified I was a little worried.”
The worry started to come to fruition, with the Giants trailing by halfway through the meet. However, a strong showing in the second half of the meet pushed the team to victory.
“We’re what you call a back half team,” Cavanaugh said. “At halfway through the meet, we were down by 100 points, but then we had the events in which we were really stacked. In the back half our guys placed really highly and took the points home.”
The team ended the meet with a conservative fourth place finish in the 400-meter relay. Terra Linda seized first in that event, but it wasn’t enough to put them in the lead, and Redwood ended its losing streak.
“If you’re 18 now, then you were only five years old the last time the boys won an MCAL pennant,” Cavanaugh said. “There are a lot of really fast swimmers who have come through Redwood in the past 13 years who have never taken home a pennant. It feels like they somehow contributed to this win, that we somehow vindicated their effort.”
The girls tried to repeat the success that they’ve experienced in the last ten years of winning the MCAL pennant, but weren’t able to pull ahead of their rivals and add another year to their winning streak.
According to Cavanaugh, it was almost as if the boys and girls switched places.
“It was a little odd. We’re always used to the girls dominating, and us having a few fast swimmers but never really pulling through for a win,” Cavanaugh said. “Last year we were contending champions, but we still couldn’t match the girls and their ten-year victory streak. Switching places this year was really different for everyone, but they did there best and every streak eventually ends.”
The streak was ended by Marin Catholic, which has placed in the top three every year for the past four years but hasn’t won a MCAL pennant since 1972.
“In the past two years, [MC has] become a huge factor in the MCAL championships,” said junior Emma McCarthy. “They’ve always been pretty talented, but in the past few years they’ve stepped up a lot in terms of racing and competition.”
According to McCarthy, a lot of the talent lies in a strong junior class, as well as some standout sophomores.
“We knew that MC was definitely going to put up a fight, and individually and as a team they swam very well,” McCarthy said.
However, McCarthy is hopeful that the Giants can overcome Marin Catholic in the coming years.
“They’re graduating a few girls that are good, but a large part of their talent comes from juniors and sophomores, so I think we are going to run into close competition with them in years to come,” McCarthy said. “We are also graduating a lot of seniors who make a huge impact on our team.”
Cavanaugh also said that the boys team is losing some important seniors, including himself and Yaroslav Kurakin, both of whom are top point scorers.
“We are losing a bunch of seniors, but I think the team has a solid future because the competition is losing a lot of their top scorers as well,” Cavanaugh said.
The boys hope to replicate their success next year, and the girls are trying to overcome the problem posed by Marin Catholic, according to McCarthy.
“Hopefully we’ll come together as a team to rebound from this little bump in our legacy.”
