Peters wins gold, Lambert silver as Giants men place 8th and women 12th at state swim/dive championships
By Nick Giannandrea
COS ATHLETICS
For the second straight season, College of the Sequoias has produced a state individual aquatics champion.
Joshy Peters captured the men's 100-yard freestyle race to highlight the accomplishments of 13 Giants who competed at the California Community College Athletic Association's State Swimming and Diving Championships on May 4-6 at East Los Angeles Colleges' Swim Stadium in Monterey Park.
Peters won the 100 free on May 6, the final day of the three-day event after finishing as the runner up in the 50 free and 200 free during the first two.
"When I finished the race, I was like, 'finally!,'" Peters said. "It was the last day of competition and I had gotten seconds during the first two. I was like, 'man, I've been working so hard and I didn't come here to get second in all of them.' It was pretty cool to finally get one."
While clocking his own school-record-bettering 44.33 seconds, Peters shaved 1.11 seconds off a third-place time in last season's 100 free state final. And, he took down the defending champion Andrew Espinosa of Sierra, who finished third in 45.42. Long Beach's Sullivan Moore was second, a second behind in 45.39.
"It was so exciting," said Sequoias coach Ally Briano, who had Jillian Lambert strike state gold in the women's 50 free last season. "Last year lit a fire under Joshy and made him furious. He came back with a vengeance and trained very hard. Some people who win win by accident. He did not win by accident. He worked for every bit of this."
Moore led after the first 50 at 21.49, but Peters, coming from outside lane seven, accelerated and hit 22.77 over the final 50 for the title.
The sophomore out of Redwood High said he got a little too pumped up before his first two individual races and opted for a different tactic in the finale. Rather than doing extra warmups as he had before the 50 and 200 free races, Peters said he just breathed and relaxed.
"I was thinking before (the 100 free) how to strategize it," Peters said. "I wasn't sure what I had been doing wrong. Then I figured I just needed to relax and focus on myself. In the last 50, I kept my head down and didn't worry about anyone else. It was just me and the water. I kicked my fastest and it worked out."
Peters' gold-medal swim helped propel Sequoias' men's team to an eighth-place finish out of 28 scoring schools with 188 points. Sierra was the men's team champion with 712 points.
Lambert took second in the 50 free among two individual podium finishes to lead the Giants' women's team to a 12th-place finish out of 35 scoring colleges with 123 points. Santa Monica was the women's team champion with 410 points. In all, Sequoias' swimmers lowered 10 school records they already held.
It was the best men's and women's team finishes and the most state meet participants since Briano took over as Giants coach in 2017.
"I just feel like our program is growing every year and more people are aware of the level of competition we're trying to get to," Briano said. "People are hungry to continue making a name for ourselves. Our plan is to keep bringing more and more people to state every year."
Peters finished less than a second behind Orange Coast's Ethan Smith while finishing second in the 50 free in a school-record 20.31. Smith swam 19.81.
Teammate Zachary Welch (Exeter) was 13th in the 50 free in 21.30.
Peters also bettered his school record in the 200 free, finishing second in 1:40.81. West Valley's Alec Mortensen won the event in 1:38.24, while Welch finished eighth in 1:45.49.
"It's been a long year of working really hard," said Peters, who has received recruiting interest from UNLV, UC San Diego and USC. "I'm thankful for my amazing coaches and amazing teammates. My training partners and coaches have been super key, especially Zach. Without him pushing me, I wouldn't be where I am for sure."
Peters and Welch were also part of four school-record-lowering relay teams.
Along with Caleb Peltzer (Exeter) and Mark Marroquin (Kingsburg), Sequoias' 200 free relay was ninth in 1:25.39 and the 400 free relay was ninth in 3:08.00.
Connor Bruton (Mt. Whitney) and Ezra Sisk (El Diamante) joined Peters and Welch on the ninth-place 400 medley relay in 3:31.54 and the 10th-place 200 medley relay in 1:36.20.
The Giants' men's team also received points from divers Easton Farmer (Golden West), Guy Woodard (Golden West) and Liam Henshaw (Golden West).
Farmer was fourth (221.15 points), Woodard 12th (159.50) and Henshaw 15th (148.60) in the 3-meter dive, while Farmer was fifth (214.25) and Woodard eighth (194.50) in the 1-meter.
For the women, Lambert (Golden West) finished in the top nine of three individual events and as a member of three out of four relays.
Her best finish came during a silver-medal performance in the 50 free, where her 24.01 was 0.10 seconds behind champion Alessandra Fleischman, a freshman from Palomar. It was 0.31 seconds faster than she swam while winning the event last season.
Lambert was fifth in the 100 free (53.29) and ninth in the 100 breast (1:09.21).
"Jillian swam great," Briano said. "She trained hard all year and worked her butt off. She went faster than last year, but this meet was faster than last year."
Lambert was joined by Sophia Mora (Redwood), Maycee Hyder (Porterville) and Azulema Ayon (Exeter) on four relay teams that made the A or B finals for the Giants.
Their best performance came in the 200 free, where they placed fifth in a school record 1:40.58.
They were sixth in the 400 free relay (3:47.90) and seventh in the 200 medley relay (1:54.08), both school records.
They placed 15th in the 400 medley relay in 4:30.20.
Sequoias' women also received Mora's 16th-place finish in the 200 back (2:21.81) and 18th-place effort in the 100 back (1:04.91).
"I'm really proud of all of them," Briano said.
At least four members of this year's team in addition to Peters are expected to compete at the four-year level next season.
Marroquin has committed to NCAA Division II Indianapolis and Bruton to NCAA D-III UC Santa Cruz.
Lambert is being courted by NAIA university The Master's, while Mora has an offer from NCAA D-II Fresno Pacific.
