FRESNO, Calif. – Junior Ava Chavez enjoyed a podium finish in the 200-yard freestyle and three more school records fell as St. Francis finished in a tie for eighth with 74 points at the CIF state swimming championships, held at Clovis West's Clovis Olympic Swim Complex Saturday.
Santa Margarita ran away with the girls' team title with 378 points, almost twice as many as runner-up Davis' 204. Sacred Heart and Harvard-Westlake battled for third and fourth with 103 and 101 points.
Under the watch of first-year head coach Brian Nabeta, this marks the Troubadours' highest finish since the state championship meet was inaugurated in 2015. In fact, St. Francis had scored a total of 11.5 points in three previous appearances at the state championships, with the 2017 squad placing 57th with 6.5.
Overall, the Troubies broke three records, each of which were set in the postseason run-up to the state meet: Chavez in the 200 free, freshman Erica Jaffe in the 200 individual medley, and the foursome of Jaffe, Maddy Ching, Grace Mering and Chavez in the 400 free relay.
Chavez eclipsed her week-old record in the 200 free, swimming 1:48.37 to place third and rake in 16 team points. She opened with a 25.56 first 50 yards and was in fifth place at 53.27 at the midpoint of the race. Chavez was essentially even with Archbishop Mitty's Stephanie Sifferman at the 150-yard touch, then finished with a 27.22 split. Her old SFHS benchmark was a 1:48.74 at the Sac-Joaquin Section championships.
Jaffe won the 200 IM consolation final with a time of 2:02.37, besting her day-old school record of 2:03.18 from the state trials. The freshman from Carmichael went 27.16 in the butterfly, then took the lead for good with a 30.73 in the backstroke.
Jaffe followed with a 10th-place finish in the 100 backstroke at 55.05, improving more than four tenths on her Friday prelim. She went 26.90 in the front half of the race, then came home with a 28.15 split in scoring seven more team points for the Troubies.
Chavez also contributed to the scoring column in the 500 free with a seventh-place time of 4:54.38.
St. Francis stumbled in the 200 free relay with a disqualification but rebounded with a 3:26.26 in the 400 free relay, improving more than two full seconds from Friday's prelim time of 3:28.54 and crushing the old school record of 3:28.05 from the section meet one week earlier. Jaffe went out with a 52.06 leadoff, Maddy Ching went 51.54 in the second leg, Grace Mering came through with a 52.70 in the third leg, then Chavez came home with a 49.95 anchor split.
The state championship finals concludes a 2022 season in which all but one school record fell. Overall, Chavez set marks in the 200 free, 50 free, 100 fly, 500 free and 100 breast. Jaffe set standards in the 200 IM and 100 back. Chavez and Jaffe also took part in SFHS records in the two freestyle relays. The lone surviving record is the 200 medley relay mark of 1:45.50, set by Sydney Johansen, Carissa Metcalf, Cora Stebbins and Alex Rieger back in 2011.
2022 CIF STATE SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIP FINALS
Clovis Olympic Swim Complex (Clovis, Calif.)
Events with SFHS athletes only • Winners/leaders plus SFHS finishers listed
GIRLS' 200 FREESTYLE - 1. Justina Kozan, Santa Margarita, 1:44.63… 3. Ava Chavez, 1:48.37.
GIRLS' 200 INDIVIDUAL MEDLEY - 1. Teagan O'Dell, Santa Margarita, 1:55.15… 9. Erica Jaffe, 2:02.37.
GIRLS' 500 FREESTYLE - 1. Claire Tuggle, St. Joseph, 4:44.88… 7. Ava Chavez, 4:54.38.
GIRLS' 200 FREE RELAY - 1. Santa Margarita (Lin, Salvino, Aquino, Ervin), 1:32.52… St. Francis (Chavez, Jaffe, Ching, Holliday), DQ.
GIRLS' 100 BACKSTROKE - 1. Teagan O'Dell, Santa Margarita, 52.27… 10. Erica Jaffe, 55.05.
GIRLS' 400 FREE RELAY - 1. Santa Margarita (Hodges, Salvino, O'Dell, Kozan), 3:14.80… 6. St. Francis (Jaffe, Ching, Mering, Chavez), 3:26.26
