Santa Barbara swim club wins championship

By SALLY CAPPON
South Coast Beacon

Rachel Rys won four events and Haley Wilson added three victories in the 15-16 year old age group to lead Santa Barbara Swim Club women to first place in the Southern California 2003 Winter Age Group Championships last weekend at Cerritos.

On the men’s side, Stanford-bound Danny Beal won five of six races as Santa Barbara finished third among Southern California men’s teams.

Rys, 16, won the 50- and 500-yard freestyle, 200 yard butterfly and 200 yard breaststroke. Wilson took first in the 100 and 200 free and 200-yard individual medley.

Beal, 17, a senior at Dos Pueblos High School, was the lead male scorer, winning the 50, 100 and 500 free and 100 and 200 IM.

Spencer Ramsey was also a quintuple winner, taking the 200 and 500 free, 100 and 200 breaststroke and 400 IM in the 15-16 boys division.

Double winners were Sarma Zemjanis, 15-16 girls 100 and 200-yard backstroke; Charlotte Naylor, 13-14 girls 100 breaststroke and 400 IM, and 17-year-old Egan Gans, 100 and 200 breaststroke, and Daniel Johnson, 1000 and 1650 free.

In all, 39 Santa Barbara swimmers scored in individual events and all 46 relay teams in five age groups tallied points in what head coach Ira Klein called “a team effort.’’

Santa Barbara’s women posted 1,830 points to top Mission Viejo with 1,394 points and Irvine Nova, 1,201. Nova took top men’s honors with 2,175 points, followed by the Irvine Aquazots, 1.463 points, and Santa Barbara, 1,358 points. A total of 1,000 swimmers from 40 teams competed at the Cerritos Aquatic Center.