Ending the season with a bang, two team members who competed at the state championships over the weekend may qualify for the 2010 All-American.
An All-American is someone who is among the top 16 swimmers or divers in the entire country.
The athlete has to finish eighth place or higher in their race, Corey Stanbury, coach said.
As a team, EC scored a point total of 36 at the state championships and placed 23rd in all of California.
“We had a good season and we accomplished a lot,” Stanbury said. “I am proud of, but the season is not entirely over.”
Nicholas Timko is the only swimmer on the team who qualified for state by swimming his 500-yard freestyle in 4:44 and his 200-yard freestyle in 1:44.
Timko said he may have met the requirements to become an All-American in both events.
“I am really proud of myself about making state and placing eighth overall. I feel that if I had more time to prepare, I could have gone faster than I did, but nonetheless I am still very happy with my results,” Timko said.
Unfortunately, the state championship swimmer is transferring from EC after this semester.
“This is my first and last season, but I am planning on swimming as exercise wherever I go on a master’s team,” Timko said.
Stanbury had nothing but praise for Timko.
“Timko was really fast and it is never good news to lose a good swimmer,” Stanbury said. “Hopefully we are going to get some fast swimmers next season.”
“Luckily, there has never been a season that we (EC swim team) did not bring a swimmer to state,” Stanbury said. “We have been very fortunate in that case.”
Although there were no women swimmers at state this season, there have been other seasons where there were no men, Stanbury said.
Jose Bahena placed fifth with a point total of 238 on the 3-meter diving board, qualifying him to be an All-American.
One place away from qualifying on both diving board events, Bahena scored 182 on the 1-meter board and came in ninth.
“For the 3-meter board, I did really well. Obviously, there was a lot of competition, but I did well,” Bahena said. “On the 1-meter diving board I feel I did not do as well as I had hoped but it’s OK because I know I at least competed at the state championships.”
Bahena did really well and was only one place away in his 1-meter dive in order to qualify for the All-American in both of his events, Stanbury said.
“Next semester I plan for there to be more bodies on the team and for us to be faster,” Stanbury said.