Bulldog girls win first swim meet of season
Ramona High School’s girls swim team began the 2010 season with a 95-75 win over Valhalla March 5 at the Norsemen’s pool.
The meet was also the first for Jolyn Yanez as Ramona’s official head coach. Yanez had been Ramona’s junior varsity coach for six years and substituted for varsity coach Stacey Dusseault last year when Dusseault’s second child was born. Dusseault will be focusing on her children, now 3 years old and 10 months old, this season, although she has not ruled out the possibility of returning to coaching duties in the future.
“It’s kind of an exciting opportunity,” Yanez said of taking over as the varsity coach.
Yanez began her Ramona High School swim career as a ninth-grader when she swam for the Bulldogs. Although the CIF San Diego Section did not have high school girls water polo at the time, in college Yanez played club water polo at Northern Arizona University and then played varsity water polo at the University of California Santa Barbara.
She returned to Ramona after her graduation from UCSB and obtained a position as an instructor at San Diego Country Estates. Yanez first worked for Dusseault when Dusseault was SDCE’s aquatics director, joined Dusseault on the Ramona Rays swim club (which later merged with the Heartland Swimming Association) in 2000, and subsequently accepted Dusseault’s invitation to coach Ramona High School’s junior varsity team.
Another former Ramona High School swimmer, Caitlyn Mitchell, has replaced Yanez as Ramona’s junior varsity coach. Gene Oxe joins the staff as a volunteer coach, and Karen Gantzer is handling dry land conditioning.
Ramona’s varsity won eight of the 11 events against Valhalla.
Two Ramona High School freshman, Gina Lucas and Lisse Litka-Baughman, were on two winning relay teams apiece.
Ramona not only won all three relay events but achieved CIF meet automatic qualifying times in all three. Lucas, Katherine Abbott, Madi Lanz and Taylor Shinnick won the 200-yard medley relay. Lanz, Ellie Carrano, Litka-Baughman and Breann Stevens took first in the 200-yard freestyle relay. Lucas, Carrano, Litka-Baughman and Stevens had the fastest time in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
Ramona’s “B” team of Katie Gonzalez, Brice Maruna, Sydney Davison and Abbott achieved a CIF meet consideration time in the 400-yard freestyle relay, although a school can only enter one team in a relay event at the CIF meet. If a school qualifies for a relay event, the coach can select any four swimmers to compete at the CIF meet regardless of whether they were involved in obtaining the qualifying time.
Stevens also won the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle races, posting CIF automatic qualifying times in each.
Lanz earned automatic entry into the CIF meet with her win in the 100-yard butterfly. Although Valhalla won the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard individual medley, Lucas obtained automatic qualifying times for both.
Shinnick won the 500-meter freestyle race, obtaining a CIF meet consideration time. Abbott achieved a consideration time while winning the 100-yard breaststroke.
Abbott and Lanz also swam consideration times in the 200-yard individual medley. Consideration times were also attained by Carrano in the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle events, Shinnick in the 200-yard freestyle, Litka-Baughman in the 100-yard butterfly, and Maruna in the 500-yard freestyle.
“It was good to come out with a win,” Yanez said.