Davison third in 100-yard freestyle, fourth in breaststroke at CIF meet
Ramona High School senior Cory Davison closed out his high school swimming career finishing third in the 100-yard freestyle race and fourth in the 100-yard breaststroke at the CIF meet at Granite Hills High School on Saturday.
Davison, who plans to seek a walk-on berth with next year’s Arizona State University swim team, posted a time of 47.49 seconds in the 100 freestyle finals. Although his breaststroke finals time of 59.49 seconds was the fourth fastest in that race, he swam his May 13 preliminary heat in 58.91 seconds, which placed third among that day’s performances and narrowly missed the school record of 58.56 seconds set by Carlo Silva during last year’s CIF finals.
“Cory was knocking at the door at Carlo’s record,” said coach Jolyn Yanez. “He was hoping to get that record this year.”
Davison was Ramona’s only swimmer to reach the championship finals. A change approved by the CIF Board of Managers in January increased the number of swimmers who qualify for the CIF preliminaries from 24 to 32 in each event while increasing the number of swimmers advancing to the finals from 12 to 16. The top eight times in the preliminaries are worth lanes in the championship finals while the next eight times allow for a return in the consolation finals.
“I’m really happy that they opened it up to 16 finalists,” Yanez said. “It was a good move.”
Yanez is also appreciative of the increase to 32 swimmers in each event.
“It made a huge difference. A lot of kids who are pretty young in my program got to swim,” she said.
All three Ramona boys relay teams advanced to the consolation finals. The 400 freestyle relay team of Spencer Schwegler, Ethan Blackburn, Trevor White and Davison posted a 10th-place time of 3:24.20. The 200 medley relay quartet of Schwegler, Davison, Bryan Larson and Jacob Powers were 11th in the preliminaries before placing 12th in the finals with a time of 1:46.68.
The expansion of the finals allowed Connor Close, Powers, White and Blackburn to compete in the consolation finals of the 200 freestyle relay, where their time of 1:36.01 placed 15th. The boys as a team placed 12th among 25 Division II schools.
The only Ramona girls in the finals were the 400 freestyle relay quartet of Maddie Schwegler, Carney Flinn, Megan McLoughlin and Katie Szakara. Their time of 4:08.88 gave them 11th place and 12 team points, allowing the Bulldog girls to place 25th among Division II teams.
The girls 200 medley relay team finished 23rd in the preliminaries while the 200 freestyle relay team was disqualified for a false start.
Maddie Schwegler was Ramona’s only individual girl qualifier for the preliminaries. She participated in the 200 freestyle race and her time of 2:07.01 placed 19th.
Spencer Schwegler was in two boys preliminary races. His 1:00.86 in the 100 backstroke placed 22nd and his 500 freestyle time of 5:15.22 gave him 29th place.
White was 22nd in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:52.87. Blackburn placed 23rd in the 50 freestyle at 23.30 seconds and 29th in the 100 freestyle with a 51.92-second performance.