Trio looks to lead Spartans to more success
Katy Campbell wants to go out with a bang by improving on last season.
It would certainly be a loud exit considering the success Campbell enjoyed on the La Cañada High girls’ swim team as a junior in 2011.
The UCLA-bound senior won the only CIF Southern Section Division I title last year for the Spartans — boys or girls — in the 500-yard freestyle in 4 minutes, 43.04 seconds and also took third in the 200 freestyle before taking first in both those events at the Masters Meet.
Sarah Olson also returns — along with Samantha Campbell, Katy’s sister — to try for their 11th straight and 19th Rio Hondo League title overall under first-year Coach Kristen Dronberger, who also coached the girls’ water polo team in the winter.
“Our main goal is to keep the tradition of excellence in our league and CIF,” Dronberger said. “The best thing to do is take it one meet at a time and see what we need to improve on and figure out what tweaks to strokes or turns need to be made. We’re going to see how the times are dropping and hopefully it will live up to what we’ve done in the past.”
Olson should dominate the 50 freestyle again this year after she set a league record in the event at last year’s league finals in 24.15. She took 14th in the 50 in the Division I finals.
Samantha Campbell, a sophomore, gives the Spartans depth in the 50 and 100 backstroke.
The Spartans also have four other seniors outside of Olson and Campbell — Jackie Lencbai (100 back), Rebecca Burten and Savannah Scilley (freestyles) and Katherine Franklin (100 free, breast and back) — that will have an impact this season.
There’s also three freshmen — Megan Arnold, Miranda Mora and Rachel Wong — that give La Cañada plenty of depth.
It’s not yet certain where each of these pieces will fit yet, but that’s a good problem, Dronberger said.
“We have a very, very wide array of talent and abilities on this team,” she said. “I can put them in pretty much any event and I feel like they will excel.”
Last season, Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy Coach Steve Bergen cited youth and depth as the Tologs’ defining characteristics. The two will go hand in hand once again this year, as Sacred Heart has added even more depth in the form of youth, naturally.
After losing just a couple of senior role players from the squad that claimed three Mission League individual titles and took third as a team.
“We’ve got everybody back, it’s great,” Bergen said. “We bring everybody back and we have a very special freshman this year.”
Actually, the Tologs will welcome three first-year swimmers who are poised to make an immediate impact, but the crown jewel of Bergen’s freshman class is Kirsten Vose.
“She should be top-eight at CIF [finals] in Division I in the breaststroke and she’ll be top-20 in the IM as well,” said Bergen, whose team did not qualify any swimmers for last year’s CIF Southern Section Division I finals. “She’s going to score points as a freshman. She’s a special swimmer.”
Vose and fellow newcomers Sarah Hughes and Katie Altman join the returning core of league titlists sophomore Katie Altmayer and junior Emily Balog, as well as junior Meg Ryan.
“Our relays now are going to be really good, I definitely think we’re the team to beat in league,” said Bergen, who hails Vose as the missing piece of his relays alongside Altmayer, Balog and Ryan. “We’re going to do really well and at least two of our three relays should score points this year [at CIF]. We’re going to be really good and we’re going to be really good for years to come with this batch that we have right now.”
Sophomore Jennifer Langen and senior Suzanna Tan both earned CIF consideration times last year and both are back to anchor Flintridge Prep’s Prep League-member squad under second-year Coach Ryan Goto.
“We have a lot of new people, a lot of people left last year, so we’re definitely getting a fresh batch,” Goto said. “We’ll see. I think we have a fair shot at [qualifying swimmers] for CIF.