2022 Justin Carr “Friday Night Lights Classic”
- March 11, 2022
- Harvard-Westlake School, Los Angeles, California
- Short Course Yards (25 yards), timed finals
- Full Meet Results (PDF)
The 2022 California High School Swimming & Diving season is underway, and Friday night saw 3 of Los Angeles’ best private high school teams and 2 strong public school programs come together for a miniature early-season invitational competition at the Harvard-Westlake School.
The meet featured a number of top-ranked high school recruits and some very fast early-season results. That includes the #2-ranked recruit in the high school class of 2023 Rex Maurer, who led the Loyola boys to a win in the meet.
Maurer won the 200 free in 1:35.72, beating out his teammate Zach Larrick (1:37.50).
A year ago, both swimmers were racing for the first time after pandemic restrictions began to ease, at a Sectionals meet in Utah. Both swimmers on Friday were about three seconds better than they were at that meet a year ago, with both ending their seasons at Winter Juniors – West with personal best times in this race. Starting off well ahead of that pace bodes well as they head into their junior seasons.
Maurer followed that up with a 4:20.70 in the 500 free. That’s only about a second slower than he was at last year’s CIF Southern Section Championship meet to conclude his sophomore season. He was 4:15 at Winter Juniors.
Maurer also split 20.15 to anchor Loyola’s winning 200 medley relay (1:31.14), and 44.19 to anchor the team’s winning 400 free relay (3:00.30).
Loyola finished 2nd at last year’s CIF-SS Division I Championship meet, just 1.5 points behind Santa Margarita. Finishing 3rd at that meet was Harvard-Westlake, which also had some standout performances on Friday.
Senior Tommy Park won the 200 IM in 1:48.87, just off the 1:48.5 that he swam for 3rd place at last year’s CIF-SS Championship meet. Loyola freshman Ray Liu placed 2nd in 1:50.95.
Park also won the 100 breaststroke on Friday in 56.54. Showing off his versatility, he was 4th in the 100 backstroke at last year’s CIF-SS meet, but could contend for the 100 breast title this year.
That’s a new lifetime best by 1.4 seconds for Park, a Yale commit, and puts him within two seconds of Yale’s best from the 2021-2022 season.
Loyola had three swimmers under a minute in that 100 breast, including Alekos Binder in 57.32 and Edward Kim in 57.9 – incredible depth for a high school program this early in the season.
Harvard-Westlake is also home to National Age Group Record breaker Ronald Dalmacio, a senior USC commit. He won the 50 free in 20.36 and the 100 fly in 48.33 – in the latter, out-touching Loyola’s James Cahill (48.49).
Those times for Dalmacio just-miss the 20.20 and 48.07 lifetime bests that he swam at Sectionals last weekend.
Outside of their high school training and competition, Maurer, Park, Larrick, Dalmacio, and Kim all train together at Rose Bowl Aquatics.
The girls meet saw Harvard-Westlake win by 21 points over Valencia. The girls meet didn’t have the same star-power as the boys meet, but there were still some good swims.
Harvard-Westlake sophomore Lily Neumann was unbeaten on the day, including relays. Individually, she won the 50 free in 23.44 and the 100 backstroke in 58.08.
Harvard Westlake flew to PA to compete in the Easterns Feb 25-26. They were quite fast there with Dalmacio and Park leading men’s team scoring.
55:55
wouldn’t be surprised if he got close to the National HS record in both the 500 and the 200
Surprised to learn Ronald Dalmacio committed to usc – I really hope Rex chooses cal over usc or Stanford but we shall see.
This was a ridiculous early season meet. The flyer on Maurer’s medley (James Cahill) also split a 21.81 – that’s a dirty 50 fly split for a high schooler early in the season
Unless he’s only a high school swimmer, point in the season is irrelevant, been training all year.
Don’t put disrespect on Cahill’s name
Heard Cahill’s mainly a year round synchronized swimmer. Pretty dirty split if this rumors true.
Rumor has it this is Cahill and Tex is in the off season so those swims were filthy.
ah yes, Tex Maurer, and his brother Tuke Maurer, and mother Tea Maurer
Nice swim Tex!
This sport is getting so fast anymore. I remember watching Fran Crippen go 4:19 at Easterns HS Championships many years ago and losing my mind. HS kids are going 4:20 early season now. Yikes.
Is swimming a spring sport in California highschools?
yeah, regular season was like feb-may or so when I was in high school
It is, to avoid water polo, which is a fall sport for boys and winter sport for girls.
State meet is usually in June (when it happens).