Santa Margarita Boys, Girls Win CIF-Southern Section Titles; Teagan O’Dell Sets 200 IM Record

2024 CIF-SOUTHERN SECTION DIVISION 1 CHAMPIONSHIPS

• May 2-4, 2024 (swimming)
• Mt. San Antonio College – Walnut, California
• SCY (25 yards)
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• Results on Meet Mobile: “2024 CIF-SS Division 1”
• Diving Results
• Prelims Results
• Finals Results
• Team Scores

The boys and girls from Santa Margarita High School continued their reign of dominance in swimming & diving in the CIF Southern Section. The Eagles swept the girls’ and boys’ state titles for the 4th-consecutive season, with the girls winning a 10th-straight SoCal crown.

Both teams saw new Meet Records fall, with National Teamer Teagan O’Dell coming within a few tenths of her own National and State Record in the 200 IM.

Girls’ Recap

Top 5:

1. Santa Margarita – 439
2. Mira Costa – 180
3. Hart – 171
4. Jserra – 156
5. Fountain Valley – 139

The Santa margarita girls put up another dominant performance en route to their 10th-straight team victory. While it wasn’t quite the 300-point margin they rolled out last year, a 259-point advantage over a much-improved Mira Costa team (they were 11th at last year’s meet) was good enough to launch them off to the CIF Championship meet as the favorites to repeat there as well.

The run included a Meet Record in the 200 IM from National Team member Teagan O’Dell. She swam 1:53.63 to break her own record of 1:54.07 set at last year’s meet.

That left her just a quarter-second shy of her 1:53.38 from last year’s California State Championship meet where she set the National High School Record.

The splits show that O’Dell is swimming this race quite differently than she did last season, especially going out much more aggressively on the backstroke leg.

Splits Comparison:

O’Dell’s 200 IM was the only successful title defense in eight individual swimming events on the schedule.

While she is unlikely to fight through a crowded field in the 200 IM at this summer’s Olympic Trials, a finals swim could be a launching pad to big future results on the national stage.

She is not entered at next week’s State Championship meet, so she won’t have the chance to defend her title or break her record in the 200 IM.

O’Dell also won the 100 fly in 52.12 on Saturday. She swam the 100 back at last year’s meet.

She was one of two swimmers who grabbed individual wins for Santa Margarita at the meet. The other was junior Gracyn Aquino, who won the 50 free in 22.65. That took a tenth off her own personal best from a dual meet in March. She is committed to swim at Cal in fall 2025 along with O’Dell.

She also finished 2nd in the 100 free in 50.12 behind Poly-Riverside sophomore Ava DeAnda. DeAnda swam 48.82 for the win, which is .02 seconds shy of her personal best from Winter Juniors in December. That’s her second-straight Southern Section title, though last year she won in Division 2 in a time of 48.85.

O’Dell and Aquino combined to lead Santa Margarita to two relay wins. In the opening 200 medley relay, O’Dell (24.42), Eileen Song (30.03), Chloe Stinson (23.81), and Gracyn Aquino (21.81) combined for a 1:40.07. Aquino’s split was the best in the final by four-tenths. O’Dell and Stinson (by almost a second) also had the fastest splits on their legs.

Mira Costa junior Bella Brito was the fastest breaststroker of the field, splitting 28.16 as part of her team’s 1:42.55 time for 2nd place (tied with Sofia Szymanowski).

They then closed the session in 3:20.57, with the relay of O’Dell (48.37), Audrey Lee (51.13), Victoria Mori (51.36), and Aquino (49.71) winning by more than six seconds.

This was the tightest relay in the heats, but the addition of O’Dell and Aquino blew the race wide open.

Santa Margarita’s incredible depth allowed them to finish the sweep handily in the 200 free relay even without their two sprint stars O’Dell and Aquino. There, the quartet of Victoria Mori (23.37), Morgan Hoppe (23.61), Audrey Lee (23.49), and Chloe Stinson (23.17) combined for a 1:33.64. Flint Ridge Prep was 2nd in 1:36.45; their anchor Natalie Walklett had the fastest split of the field in 22.92, but they didn’t have the depth to challenge Santa Margarita.

DeAnda split 22.96 leading off Poly-Riverside’s leadoff leg.

Alyssa Ton made her Southern Section debut with a bang, winning the 200 free in 1:45.96. That smashed her best time of 1:47.36 from Winter Juniors West. That ranks her as the 9th-best swimmer all-time among 13-14 swimmers.

Top 10 All-Time, 13-14 200 SCY Freestyle

1. Missy Franklin – 1:44.55 (2010)
2. Claire Weinstein – 1:44.72 (2021)
3. Claire Tuggle – 1:44.96 (2018)
4. Rylee Erisman – 1:45.28 (2023)
5. Justina Kozan – 1:45.77 (2018)
6. Taylor Ruck – 1:45.81 (2014)
7. (TIE) Stephanie Elkins – 1:45.91 (1977)/Courtney Harnish – 1:45.91 (2014)
9. Alyssa Ton – 1:45.96 (2024)
10. Madi Mintenko – 1:46.04 (2022)

She helped lead Fountain Valley way up the rankings into the top 5. They more-than-doubled the 65 points they scored at last year’s meet for 17th place.

Other Event Winners:

• The runners-up from Mira Costa won a pair of races. Bella Brito won the 100 breast in 1:00.36, which is three-tenths off her best time from Sectionals in 2022. The USC commit skipped her first two seasons of high school swimming, but is now a Southern Section Champion. Like O’Dell, she too will skip the State Championship meet where she would have been the top seed.
• The other Mira Costa winner was Delaney Herr, who won the 100 back in 53.93. Herr was the runner-up in the 100 fly at this year’s meet, and while she slid to 8th in that race this year, she won the 100 back in O’Dell’s absence.
• Woodrow Wilson senior Samantha Hamilton swam a best time for 5th place in the 200 free (1:48.58) and added another in the 500 free for the win in 4:46.63. In one of the more-dominant individual performances of the meet, she won that race by 6.3 seconds over Hart senior Lily Dormans (4:52.98).
• San Juan Hills senior Taylor Fox finished her high school career with a third-straight win on 1-meter. Fox is committed to one of the country’s best college diving programs at the University of Texas.

Boys’ Recap

Top 5:

1. Santa Margarita – 382
2. Loyola – 345
3. Northwood – 281
4. Jserra – 181
5. El Segundo – 161

It wasn’t the runaway that the psych sheets projected in the boys’ meet, but the Santa Margarita boys held on for a 4th-straigh title ahead of the Loyola Cubs. Loyola’s runner-up finish marks an 18th-straight season in the top 3 at the Southern Section Championships.

Along with Northwood, the boys’ meet featured three of the top four from last year’s State Championship meet.

The Santa Margarita boys made hay in relays, finishing in the top three in all three relays.

They opened the meet with the lone win of the relays and a new Meet Record in the 200 medley relay in 1:29.08. That broke their own record of 1:29.30 set at last year’s meet with three of the same four legs.

Ramon Jiang (23.19), Nathan Wu (24.84), Daniel Verdolaga (20.62), and Jerry Yan (20.43) combined for the win and the record, clearing Loyola by about half-a-second. Jiang, who was the freestyler for Santa Margarita last year, moved to the backstroke leg this year. Wu and Verdolaga also returned from that relay.

All four SM swimmers graduate after this season, so they’ll need to incorporate some new faces into next year’s relay.

Loyola swapped in Andrew Brown on their anchor leg, and he had the fastest final 50 of the field with a 19.97. Northwood was 3rd in 1:31.01, with Derek Hitchens‘ 22.37 backstroke leg leading the final.

Uncoincidentally, both Brown and Hitchens won the 50 free individually. Brown, a senior, won the 50 free in 20.41, leading a tight race that saw Woodbridge’s Jacob Wang (20.45), Newport Harbor’s Connor Ohl (20.48), and El Segundo’s Lucas Crother-Collado (20.52) all finish within .11 of Brown.

Brown’s time in the 50 and for 5th-place in the 100 (45.34) were both lifetime bests.

Hitchens, meanwhile, was 2nd in the 100 back to Loyola junior Ray Liu. Liu won the race in 48.07, and Hitchens was just-behind in 48.55. That wasn’t a best time for Liu, but his 3rd place finish in the 200 IM (1:46.38) was. Liu is an uncommitted high school junior.

While Hitchens didn’t get the win in the 100 back, not long after he did lead off Northwood’s winning 400 free relay. He split 44.63 on the leadoff leg and was followed by Elson Lee (45.88), Will Chen (44.48), and Andrew Maksymowski (44.16) as the trio combined for a 2:59.15. They were able to hold-off Santa Margarita’s senior anchor Hunter Cehelnik, who split 43.91 but came up two-tenths short in 2:59.37.

Those two teams are the top two seeds, by four-and-a-half seconds, for next week’s State Championship meet.

The 200 free relay saw another narrow loss for Santa Margarita, this time behind Loyola. The Loyola relay of Brown (20.66), Liu (20.41), Gavin Santoso (20.93), and Edward Kim (20.57) combined for a 1:22.57. That successfully defended their title, though it didn’t break their Section Record set last season.

Santa Margarita was a tenth back, including a 20.13 leadoff leg for Cehelnik.

Cehelnik finished 9th in the 200 free but won the 50 free in 44.34, just .13 seconds off his best time from prelims. Cehelnik was as fast as 1:37.75 in the 200 free in December, but based on his times at this meet, the 50 free likely would have been a higher-scoring option for him.

Northwood’s Andrew Maksymowski won that 200 free in 1:35.51, yet another best time in what has been a never-ending run of them this spring. Starting with a 1:37.39 at Winter Juniors, he went 1:36.86 in March, 1:36.85 in April, 1:36.47 in April, and now 1:35.51. In total this season, the sophomore has dropped 2.75 seconds from his best time done en route to an 8th-place finish at last year’s Southern Section meet.

He then won the 500 free in 4:22.64, taking about half-a-second off his best time from early March.

Daniel Verdolaga contributed to SM’s effort with two big relay swims and two individual wins – along with Maksymowski, he was one of two individual double winners at the meet.

First Verdolaga won the 200 IM in a best time of 1:46.07, and then he won the 100 fly in 46.90 (not a best time). Those were his first two career Southern Section titles; he was also top four in both events at last year’s State Championship meet. He is the top seed in the 200 IM and the #2 seed in the 100 fly for this year’s meet.

The third and final Meet Record of the day fell at the hands of San Marino senior Daniel Li. The Stanford commit won the 100 breaststroke in 53.05, which broke Tanner Olson’s 2017 record of 53.18. While it was a Meet Record, it wasn’t Li’s personal best – he was 52.43 to win last year’s Division 2 title before San Marino was promoted to Division 1 this season.

Combined with a runner-up swim in the 200 IM (1:46.29), he scored 41 of his team’s 52 individual points as part of a 7th-place finish.

Other Event Winners:

• Nolan Rooker, a senior at San Clemente, won the boys’ diving event with 610.85 points, 44 ahead of the runner-up Valentino Nieto from Santa Margarita.