Los Fresnos girls, Shary Pioneer boys capture Fall Festival Swim Meet team championships

Los Fresnos’ swimmers have some positive feelings about what’s ahead for their season after Saturday’s strong showing at the Fall Festival Meet at Brownsville’s Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center.

Twenty teams competed in the boys division and 17 for the girls in the two-day meet with the diving held on Friday.

The Lady Falcons captured the girls team title in decisive fashion with 282 points as runners-up Brownsville Veterans Memorial and Harlingen South each had 228. The Los Fresnos boys (276 points) finished as runners-up to first-place Sharyland Pioneer (286.5 points) in their division.

One of the highlights for the Lady Falcons took place in the girls 400 freestyle relay. They won the event thanks to the swims of Rebeca Osuna, Emily Rodriguez, Maria Manongas and Alexandria Alaniz.

“It’s such an honor and I’m so proud to swim for the Lady Falcons,” said Rodriguez, a sophomore. “We’re comfortable with each other and we’re just able to make it work (on our relay). This year we have a ton of young swimmers — a lot of freshmen and sophomores. We’re building the team up for when we’re seniors.”

Added teammate Alaniz, a senior, “Yes, (our showing at this meet) was a confidence booster for us. We’ve been keeping track of our times to make sure we do well at our district meet (in January).”

The Lady Falcons also won the 200 freestyle relay (Osuna, Alaniz, Citabria Barrales and Sarah Villarreal) and placed second in the 200 medley relay (Osuna, Villarreal, Manongas and Rodriguez).

Also, Villarreal won the 100 breaststroke to help boost the Lady Falcons.

“Our swimmers did a great job and I’m happy for them,” first-year Los Fresnos coach Jaime Perez said. “They’ve been working real smart and hard. With a lot of smart, hard work comes a lot of success. We’re still a long way from where we want to be, but we’re taking steps to get there. We’re excited about what we’ve accomplished so far.”

Behind Los Fresnos, Brownsville Veterans and South in the girls team standings were Pioneer (216 points) and Harlingen High (185). Rivera (180) and Hanna (179) were sixth and seventh, respectively.

In the boys team standings, Hanna and Brownsville Veterans tied for third place with 192 points apiece, while South and PSJA Southwest tied for fifth place with 181 points each. Rivera was seventh with 162 points.

Los Fresnos’ boys won the 200 and 400 freestyle relays with swimmers Will McKinney, Luis Osuna, Samir Reddy, Danny Escamilla and Robert Wells, while individually, McKinney won the 100 butterfly.

Point-earning finishes by a number of boys helped Pioneer capture its team title. Individual winners for Pioneer included Marc Rodriguez in the 1-meter diving and Walter Peacock in the 100 breaststroke. Actually, Peacock and Roma’s Sergio Barrera each came in with the exact same time of 1 minute, 10.61 seconds so they were declared co-winners of the event.

Pioneer had a pair of second-place finishes with its 400 freestyle and 200 medley relays.

“It went really well for us today,” Pioneer coach Arnold Perez said. “We have a young team. I’m not going to graduate any of our guys, so I’m really excited about our future. This is just the fourth year of our program and finally it’s starting to pay off. This is the first year to have a complete team, and it’s showing. We’ve been in the top two (teams) before, so it’s finally good to win one of these meets. We were missing a couple of guys, so I think we could have done even better here today.”

In the boys individual events, double-winners included Brownsville Veterans’ Adrian Fierro (50 and 100 freestyles) and South’s Justin Diaz (200 individual medley and 500 freestyle).

For the girls, the double-winners were Valley Christian’s Frida Salazar (50 and 100 freestyles) and South’s Camille Lizada (200 individual medley and 500 freestyle).

Other individual event winners for the girls included Hanna’s Gloria Orta (200 freestyle), McAllen Memorial’s Patricia Rocha (1-meter diving), Roma’s Isabella Gonzalez (100 butterfly) and Hanna’s Nadia Gutierrez (100 backstroke).

Other individual event winners for the boys were PSJA High’s Ervey Sanchez (200 freestyle) and Hanna’s Matthew Lovett (100 backstroke).

Also winning relays were the South girls and PSJA Southwest boys. They each won the 200 medley relay.

Brownsville Veterans coach Frank Sanchez said his squad did well.

‘”I was really impressed with a lot of the times our swimmers had today,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to having our swimmers do well at district and at regionals. Many of them are recording some personal-best times. I don’t want them to get too fast (and peak) right now, but they’re coming along.”