The boys’ and girls’ varsity swim teams concluded their undefeated regular season with two first place finishes at the MCAL finals meet on Saturday.
The boys’ team has won this meet the last two years in a row and the girls won nine years in a row, but were beaten out by Marin Catholic High School last year.
For the majority of the meet, the boys trailed Tamalpais High School by just a few points. Toward the end of the meet, they pulled ahead, winning the 400 freestyle relay to give the Giants a 20 point lead. The Redwood boys finished out the meet strong scoring 450 points, out performing Tamalpais High School’s second place finish with 421 points.
The girls’ side, looking for a win against the competitive Marin Catholic team, extended their lead with first place finishes in the 500 yard freestyle by senior Emma McCarthy and in the 200 yard individual medley by junior Monica Sears.
With several other highly ranked swimmers achieving best times at this weekend’s meet, coach Fred Ferroggiaro expects a total of 21 swimmers from both sides to compete in the North Coast Section meet this Friday in San Ramon.
“You have to go back to the 2007 girls’ team to match this number and the boys have never put up this many swimmers going into the NCS meet, ” Ferroggiaro said.
With her first place finish in the 500 meter freestyle and a second place finish in the 200 meter freestyle, McCarthy hopes to make it past the NCS meet and compete in the first ever California State meet on May 22 at the Clovis Olympic Swim Complex in Fresno.
“My goal for NCS is to make the top five in both my individual events. For the relays I think we have a great chance to place in the top eight. State is definitely the ultimate goal. To qualify for both my individual swims and relays would be really cool, and I think we have a great chance of doing so,” McCarthy said.