CIF swim championships: Bay Area’s best storm the podium

The San Ramon Valley boys swimming and diving team touched the wall ahead of the competition in two events Saturday afternoon at the fifth-annual California Interscholastic Federation state championships at the Clovis Olympic Swim Complex.

SRV junior Allen Dempster claimed first place in the 100-yard backstroke in 48.44 seconds. Minutes earlier, the quartet of junior Matthew Muaddi along with seniors Jack Wilkerson, Gavin Wight and Harry Flanders as anchor broke a meet record in the 200 freestyle relay in 1:22.13.

But the best was yet to come.

Oak Ridge closed out the finals with a record-setting performance in the boys 400 free relay, while SRV finished fifth. That was enough for the Wolves to hold on to their first state championship by a slim 177-174 margin.

Not to be overlooked, Harker junior Ethan Hu made a statement by breaking a pair of records in the boys 200 individual medley (1:45.44) and 100 butterfly (45.72). Both marks were set in 2015 by Saratoga’s Jack Xie, currently a junior at Cal — the 2019 NCAA champion.

Georgia-bound Zoie Hartman closed out her standout career at Monte Vista by defending her CIF titles from last year. In the girls 200 IM, she finished nearly six seconds ahead of the runner-up in 1:55.29, while Hartman almost broke her own record in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 59.92.

A couple of UCLA-bound recruits also left their mark.

Miramonte senior Sophia Kosturos erased a record set at the inaugural state meet in the girls 100 back with a time of 52.94.

Meanwhile, St. Francis senior Brooke Schaffer finished as runner-up in the girls 50 and 100 free by a combined 0.33 seconds. She also anchored the runner-up 400 free relay as the Lancers finished third in the overall standings, with Santa Margarita as the runaway state champion.

Also, USC-bound Max Saunders of Bellarmine, which claimed its 36th Central Coast Section boys title a week ago, nearly pulled off a double by winning the 200 free in 1:35.08 before being in denied a state title in the 100 free by three-hundredths of a second.

(Check back for updates).

Complete results from the CIF finals can be found here.

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