Anzar High swim program works toward continued success

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The Anzar High School Hawks girls swim team remained undefeated after a 92-65 victory against Alisal High School at its March 22 meet at Watsonville High School. The girls also have wins against Watsonville (92-54), Everett Alvarez (84-76) and North Salinas (118-48) high schools.

“I am really proud of how they are doing,” head coach Larry Willis said. “We did well last year but we are better this year. We are beating schools that are much larger than ours.”

The boys team did not fare as well in the most recent meet, losing for the first time in the season by 14 points for a final score of 87-73. The team previously scored victories against Watsonville (99-9), Everett Alvarez (82-42) and North Salinas (91-63). The lopsided score against Watsonville reflected how few boy swimmers competed for that school in the meet.

Far from being disappointed by the boys’ loss to Alisal, Willis said that this meet was a sign of how well they were doing this season.

“Many of our boys did their personal best,” he said. “It is just that the other team was better. But I am very pleased with the results, keeping in mind that we lost to Alisal last year by 60 points and that our school has 266 kids while Alisal has 3,008.”

This is the Hawks’ second year of swim competition following a five-year layoff and Willis credits the teams’ growth since 2023 as a factor in how well the season is going. 

“We’ve gone from 15 to 27 swimmers and that alone makes a difference,” he said. “Plus, our kids are all getting faster and faster. With more kids and better times, we’re able to beat some of these larger schools.”

Boys co-team captain Vinh Lieu, 16, who set a personal best by finishing the 100-meter breaststroke in 1 minute, 21 seconds, said that he swam the breaststroke for only the second week of competition, as part of an effort to widen the team’s potential.  

“More of our swimmers are experienced in freestyle,” he said. “So we’re trying to get the more diverse swimmers into doing the more complex strokes so that others who are newer can specialize in freestyle.”

Having swimmers able to compete in more events will definitely help the team this year, according to girls co-team captain Ava Kapadia.
“For each heat, if you’re in the top five, it adds points to your totals,” she said. “Now we have more people, we can go for more races and get some of the points we didn’t get last year that really mattered.”

Anzar does not have a pool, so the swimmers are disadvantaged by having to travel to Watsonville High for practice but Lieu said they make up for it with hard work.

“We’ve just been focusing on our strength, endurance and training,” he said. “We were 3-0 going into this match and we just keep getting better.”

While Lieu said that he sees the team going to the championships, Willis had reservations about the rest of the meets this season.

“We have King City next and they’re very good,” he said. “Then we have Seaside and they are going to be tough. But we have vastly improved over last year and with the number of kids and faster times, we are just going to keep doing better.”

First-place winners at the Anzar-Alisal meet include:

• Ava Kapadia: 200-meter and 500-meter freestyle
• Kayla Casillas: 200-meter individual medley and 100-meter breaststroke
• Dafny Senties: 100-meter backstroke
• Killian Kumada-McGowan: 100-meter backstroke and 100-meter freestyle
• Oliver Doupnik: 100-butterfly and 200-meter individual medley
• Scarlett Capuano: 50-meter freestyle
• Jadyn Guillen: 100-meter butterfly 
• Victoria Flores: 100-meter freestyle and 100-meter backstroke 
• Vinh Lieu: 500-meter freestyle and 100-meter breaststroke 
• Xavier Contreras: 200-meter and 500-meter freestyle

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