CHS swim teams finish fourth at Academy

ALBUQUERQUE — Clovis High’s swimming teams both came in fourth in the 22-school Albuquerque Academy Invitational over the weekend.

The Wildcats earned four new qualifying marks for next month’s state meet, also scheduled for the Academy pool, while the Lady Wildcats added three new qualifying times. Meantime, Seiji Aponte set a meet record in the boys 100 breaststroke, posing a time of 1 minute, 0.72 seconds.

CHS coach Vincent de Maio said it was a good meet for his squads overall in looking ahead to the state meet.

“The boys swam really well,” he said. “James (Skuse) and Seiji had great weekends. The girls had a solid meet overall, but the boys were really strong.”

Clovis squads are down to two regular-season meets.

“Now is the time to start focusing on our racing,” de Maio said.

Academy easily swept both team championships, taking the boys title with 848 points and the girls division with 862.

Los Alamos was second on the boys side with 635 points, with Las Cruces finishing at 556 and the Cats at 540. Meantime, Rio Rancho Cleveland was the girls’ runnerup with 592 points, ahead of Los Alamos (570) and the Lady Cats (559).

Skuse notched a victory for the Cats in the 100 backstroke in 53.50 seconds, and he led off Clovis’ first-place 200 medley relay team which also included Brian Nordgren, Aponte and Ethan Zamora and posted a time of 1:41.71.

The girls’ lone victory came in the 400 freestyle relay, where Anya Hammond led off and posted a state-qualifying 100 freestyle mark on her leg.

Hope Christian was fifth for the boys, nearly 200 points behind CHS, while Las Cruces claimed fifth for the girls and trailed the Lady Cats by more than 200 points.

Clovis squads will be in Carlsbad on Saturday for an invitational to be hosted by Artesia. That will be followed by the Hobbs Invitational the following weekend before returning to Carlsbad for district competition on Feb. 4.