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Winter Juniors qualifier Connor Martilla has announced his commitment to swim and study at the University of California- Santa Barbara. Martilla, who is from Riverside, California, will remain in-state when he relocates to UCSB for the 2022-2023 season.
I am beyond excited to announce my commitment to continue my education and swimming career at UC Santa Barbara. I would love to thank my fellow teammates, coaches, and family for the best journey I could have asked for, motivating and inspiring me to do my best in everything I do. So grateful for the opportunity and excited to be a part of the Gaucho family! Olé!
Martilla currently trains and competes with Riverside Aquatics Association. He also swam for Temescal Canyon High School. He is very versatile across several strokes and distances, with a slight specialization toward distance freestyle, breaststroke, and IM. Martilla currently holds 2022 Winter Juniors qualifying times in the 200 breast and 400 IM, as well as holding Futures times in the 500 free, 100 breast, and 200 IM.
Best Times SCY:
- 500 free- 4:34.92
- 100 breast- 58.29
- 200 breast- 2:02.70
- 200 IM- 1:52.23
- 400 IM- 3:56.12
At the 2022 CIF State Championships, Martilla competed in the 500 free and 200 IM. In the 500, he set a new personal best of 4:34.92, dropping .34 seconds to finish in 27th place. In the 200 IM, he finished 35th with a 1:54.79.
In December of 2021, Martilla competed at the Speedo Winter Junior Championships West in 3 events. His highest finish was 57th, which he achieved in the 400 IM with a time of 4:02.01. He also competed in the 200 breast and 200 IM, finishing 66th and 117th, respectively.
At the Carlsbad Speedo Sectionals in March of this year, Martilla qualified for finals and set new personal bests in a number of events. In the 500 free, he dropped over 4 seconds to go 4:35.26 and finish 24th. In the 400 IM, he achieved his highest finish of the meet, going a 3:56.12 for 2nd place. In prelims of that event, he dropped 2 seconds from his previous best time, and went on to drop another 2 seconds in finals.
UCSB is a Division I Mid-Major program that is part of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Championships. At the 2022 MPSF Championships, the Gauchos finished in 2nd place out of 7 teams.
Martilla’s versatility will make him particularly useful to UCSB, as he is able to be placed in a variety of events where there are gaps in the roster in order to help the team. He will arrive in the fall with MPSF scoring times already. Using his best times and last year’s championship results, Martilla would have placed 12th in the 400 IM, coming in 4th among the athletes from UCSB. In the 200 IM, he would have been 7th for UCSB but still fast enough to finish 18th overall. His 200 breast time would have put him12th overall and 5th on the team.
When Martilla arrives in Santa Barbara, he will be joined by fellow Californians Aiden Benjamin, Billy Picht, Matt Vinh, Henry Adamson, and Eric Gabbassof.
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