By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
It was a day for the Rivera swimmers to shine at Wednesday’s annual city meet at the Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center.
Rivera captured the boys and girls championships by decisive margins over Brownsville’s other five public high school teams. Due to testing, St. Joseph Academy did not participate.
Rivera’s girls won the team title at the city meet last year along with the boys of Brownsville Veterans Memorial.
This time, the Lady Raiders were team champions with 328 points compared to 220 points for second-place Brownsville Veterans. Hanna was third with 213 points.
For the boys, Rivera won with 345.5 points and Hanna was the runner-up with 274 points. Brownsville Veterans was third with 249.5 points.
“I thought everyone did well for the whole team and everyone contributed,” said Rivera’s Pablo De Los Santos, a senior who won the 200 individual medley and the 100 breaststroke while swimming on two first-place relays. “Being city champs, that’s pretty good. We get good vibes from this and it gives us good momentum going into the District (32-6A) meet next month.”
Another double-winner in individual events for the Rivera boys was Adrian Flores (100 and 200 freestyles), while a double-winner for the Rivera girls was Stephanie Castillo (100 freestyle and 100 backstroke). Both Flores and Castillo swam on first-place relays as well.
Also, individual event winners for Rivera included Ryan Shea (boys 100 butterfly), Jose Santos (boys 500 freestyle) and Ximena Gonzalez (girls 500 freestyle).
Rivera’s boys won all three relays, while the Rivera girls captured firsts in two relays.
“Our swimmers showed up today and they swam well,” Rivera coach Ryan Shea said. “It was exciting to watch them. They earned it and I’m proud of them.
“This is one of the meets we like to look forward to every year,” the Rivera coach added. “We all practice together, so it’s nice to race against each other and have fun. We have some hard work ahead of us now so we can have another good showing at the district meet (at the end of January). That’s what we’re hoping for.”
Hanna had some girls double-winners, too. They included Gloria Orta (200 individual medley and 100 breaststroke) along with Natalia Davila (50 and 100 freestyles). Both also swam on Hanna’s first-place 200 freestyle relay.
Also for Hanna, Matthew Lovett took first place in the boys 100 backstroke and Nadia Gutierrez was first in the girls 200 freestyle. Hanna’s Andres Anorga was first in the boys 1-meter diving.
“We had a few best times from the boys today and that surprised me, so it was a really good meet,” Hanna coach Sam Perez said. “You get to see all these swimmers everyday (at practice), and to have them finally race against each other, it’s something fun to do in a meet like this.
“We’re just looking forward to going to district and having a good season (with a strong finish),” Perez added.
Other individual winners Wednesday included Pace’s Victor Reyes (boys 50 freestyle) and Lopez’s Thadey Diaz (girls 1-meter diving).
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess