Grand Terrace High School’s female swim team succeeded this year as many of the girls broke their own records and excelled at each swim meet they attended. Destany Lewis (9th grade), Emma Arroyo (11th grade), Julianna Duran (11th grade) and Rebecca Cuellar (11th grade) all competed fiercely at swim meets and banded together for their team relays. Arroyo was the only returning swimmer from last year. A surprise splash came from Destany Lewis who broke team records in all the individual events like all Freestyle events, 200 Individual Medley, 100 Fly, and 100 Backstroke. Emma Arroyo also added to this amazing feat by breaking the 100 Breaststroke record.
Highlights of their accomplishments started on May 2, 2018 at the Sunkist League Championships. Emma Arroyo was Sunkist League’s Champion in the 200 Individual Medley where she beat her own team record. The team of four girls worked hard together and got their best time in the 200 Free Relay.
Only a freshman, Destany Lewis, dominated every race she participated in at Sunkist. She took home the championship patch in both the 50 Freestyle and the 100 Backstroke. She beat each of these with new Sunkist League Records. For the 50 Freestyle Lewis swam at 24.59 to break the old Sunkist league record of a 25.69. In the 100 Backstroke she swam a 1:02.61 to break the old league record of 1:04.64. Lewis was almost 5 seconds ahead of 2nd place in the 50 Freestyle and 20 seconds ahead in the 100 Backstroke. At such an early age Destany Lewis is an exceptional swimmer who was awarded the Female League MVP by all the coaches. For her hard work she was given an All-League MVP patch.
The next big competition was the California Interscholastic Federation swim meet in May. Destany Lewis has had a fantastic season and qualified for almost every single event and all relays but was only able to choose two individual events to swim in. Lewis chose to swim the 50 Freestyle and 100 Freestyle. Arroyo, Duran, Cuellar and Lewis teamed up to qualify for all three relays at CIF. Alternates for the relays were Celeste Sandoval, Melissa Gomez, Hannah Hanson, Sarah Saldana, Maria Odenbaugh and Allyson McGee. The Grand Terrace swim team competed in Division 4.
At the CIF Preliminaries, Destany Lewis seeded #1 in the 50 Freestyle and #9 in 100 Freestyle. Lewis ended up breaking both of her personal best times in the preliminaries. In the 50 Freestyle she made the CIF State consideration cut for that event. She qualified for the CIF Finals. Lewis although ended up placing 2nd overall in each Final event she competed in, the 50 and 100 Freestyle. She dropped in her 100 event from a 54.03 to a 53.65. In the 50 Freestyle she dropped from a 24.11 to a 23.8. Her new personal best 50 Freestyle time automatically qualified her for the CIF State meet. CIF State Preliminaries and Finals were held in Clovis on May 18-19th.
As the girls raised the stakes during this season, one boy from the Grand Terrace High school boys swimming team was able to qualify for CIF. Freshman Jacob Hegardt qualified for the 100 Breaststroke event.
If you are interested in viewing the whole CIF preliminaries and finals you can see the scores at http://faculty.polytechnic.org/cifss/.