Valley prepares for first ever swimming championship

BY MIKE GONZALEZ

The Brownsville Herald

February 11, 2005 Zero hour is finally here.

More than 450 swimmers and divers from the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi, Victoria, Alice and Laredo area hit the blocks starting today in the long-awaited 2005 Class 4A and 5A University Interscholastic League Region VIII Swimming and Diving Championships at the Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center.

Its the first regional meet ever held in South Texas. Athletes from the region are working to fulfill their dream of advancing to the state meet. Preliminaries in both swimming and diving are today, with finals on Saturday.

This was all made possible thanks in large part to UIL state athletic director Dr. Charles Breithaupt and Peter Contreras, who is in charge of putting swim meets together in Texas. After a couple of visits to the 3-year-old aquatic center, the announcement came last summer. Brownsville Athletic Director Joe Rodriguez also pushed for the city to host the meet one day, and he is happy that day if finally here.

Brownsville is rated one of the best venues in the nation, Rodriguez said. We just hope to put together a good show. We are capable of running just as good of an operation as in San Antonio. We provide as good hospitality as anybody.

Along with Rodriguez, all the athletic directors from across the Valley pushed to have the meet down here.

All the ADs were working on this for the last four or five years, Rodriguez added.

Meet coordinator and former Hanna swimmer Sam Fruia hopes Valley swimmers can take advantage of the shorter travel and produce positive results.

I think this is a great opportunity for South Texas, especially the Rio Grande Valley, Fruia said. For many years, the kids had to travel to either Corpus Christi or San Antonio.

Coming fresh off his pool record-setting performance two weeks ago in the district meet, Porter sophomore Patrick Everitt looks for the same kind of performance in regionals. Everitt captured three first-place medals, including his 48.38 time in the boys 100-yard freestyle.

The tradition of Hanna dives into the meet with high expectations. On the boys side, Javier Saenz is seeded first in the 100-yard breastroke. Saenz took first place in district in that event as well as in the 200-yard individual medley.

Hes a bullet in (the breastroke) event, Hanna coach Monica Rosales said.

On the girls side, second-seeded Stella Sandovar looks to take top honors in the 50-yard breastroke. The Lady Golden Eagles captured the district crown two weeks ago.

In Class 4A, the Lopez boys team is fresh off the district championship the Lobos secured two weeks ago. The team is led by Justin Boone, who was last years Region VIII male athlete of the year. Returning on the girls side is Maren Fruia, who is the regional meet defending champion.

Rosales said the key to success in this two-day meet is to just survive the first day.

What we need to do is qualify preliminaries and then go all out in the finals, Rosales said.

mgonzalez@brownsvilleherald.com