Sammons wins league diving
Ramona High School sophomore Josh Sammons won the Valley League diving competition May 13 at Fallbrook High School.
Sammons scored 368.05 points on his 11 dives to take first place in the meet. He will be one of 13 Ramona High School entries in the CIF meet, which for Sammons will take place tomorrow at Mesa College and for the swimmers will be held at Coronado High School with preliminaries today and finals Saturday.
Ironically, Sammons fell short of his best-ever performance while all of Ramona’s swim entries in the league meet finals set season-best times other than the 400-yard freestyle relay team which included two junior varsity callups. The league swim meet was held at Del Norte High School with preliminary heats May 14 and finals May 15.
“It actually went very well,” Ramona coach Frank Yturralde said of the league meet. “We had some very good times. It was a very good meet.”
The final league standings positions are based both on the standings from dual meets and the standings at the league meet.
Ramona was fourth both in head-to-head competition and at the league meet to give the Bulldogs a final fourth-place league finish.
“I was hoping that I could possibly steal third away from Canyon Crest, but that didn’t happen,” Yturralde said.
The closest Ramona’s swimmers came to winning a race was in the 200-yard freestyle relay, in which the Bulldogs finished third.
“We got touched out at the end. It was a very good race,” Yturralde said.
Collin Torsak, Alan Williams, James Oneto, and Kari Gonter posted a time of 1:31.25 in that race. Ramona also finished third in the 200-yard medley relay, which Williams, Oneto, Gonter, and Torsak swam in 1:44.20.
The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Michael Bernas, Nathan Creswell, Austin Maurer, and Dominic Scottolini finished fifth with a time of 3:43.84. Creswell and Maurer, both sophomores, spent the season on the junior varsity before swimming the league meet with the varsity.
The league meet also saw Creswell qualify for the consolation finals in both of his events while Maurer qualified for the consolation finals in one event. Creswell had a time of 1:04.35 in the 100-yard backstroke to place 14th and a time of 56.66 seconds in the 100-yard freestyle to finish 15th, while Maurer was 16th in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 24.78 seconds.
All three of those times were consideration times for the CIF meet, although neither of those swimmers had a fast enough consideration time to qualify for the CIF preliminaries.
In the league meet Williams placed third in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 55.86 seconds while finishing fourth in the 200-yard freestyle at 1:49.83. Torsak was fourth in the 50-yard freestyle at 22.63 seconds and fifth in the 100-yard freestyle at 50.40 seconds.
Oneto was sixth in both of his individual events, swimming the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:04.78 and the 200-yard individual medley in 2:09.84. Gonter was sixth in the 500-yard freestyle at 5:09.68 and seventh in the 200-yard individual medley at 2:09.86.
Stephen Donnellan’s time of 5:13.75 placed him seventh in the 500-yard freestyle. Scottolini was eighth in the 100-yard butterfly at 1:00.57.
All three relay teams qualified for the CIF meet. Williams qualified in the 200-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke races, Torsak qualified in the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle events, Oneto qualified in the 200-yard individual medley and the 100-yard breaststroke, Gonter qualified in the 200-yard individual medley and the 500-yard freestyle, and Donnellan qualified in the 500-yard freestyle.