On Thursday May 3, Ventura High School swim team participated in the Channel League Finals hosted at Dos Pueblos High School. This was the final meet of the Cougars’ regular season, with only the CIF meets remaining. Only individuals with qualifying times move on to CIF.

On Tuesday, May 1, and Wednesday May 2, the Cougars had CIF prelims where athletes try to get their best times to qualify for CIF.

At the finals, for the boys teams, San Marcos placed first with 370 points, followed by Dos Pueblos with 286, Ventura placed third with 282, followed by Santa Barbara with 186, and Buena placed last with 54 points.

For the girls, Dos Pueblos came out on top with 359.5 points, followed by San Marcos with 326.5, Ventura again in third with 191, followed by Santa Barbara with 157, and Buena placed last with 71.

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Even though the Cougars didn’t win Channel League, they performed exceptionally well at the finals as a lot of individuals set new personal records. Ventura had a particularly strong performance from sophomore Tea Laughlin, with her record breaking first place finishes in the 100 backstroke and 200 medley, which automatically qualify her for CIF in both races.

Other notable CIF automatic qualifiers were junior Jason Talmage and seniors Derek Eidson, Jurgen Covault, and Justin Lum who qualified for CIF in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:35.93.

Senior and captain Derek Eidson said regarding the Cougars’ performance, “Overall we all did incredibly well with almost, if not everyone, dropping times in their events.”

With the Cougars placing third in Channel League, Eidson said, “We knew it was going to be a long shot for us to win so we didn’t go into the meet with that mindset, but we thought we would [have] gotten second, but in the end all the points were really close.”

Individually, Eidson thinks he did very well. He got first in the 100 backstroke and second in the 100 freestyle. Eidson also qualified for CIF in both events as well as the 200 medley relay and the 400 free relay.

At CIF, Eidson hopes to make it to the finals in the 100 backstroke, alongside  teammate, Senior Justin Lum, who wants to finish in the top three in the 100 breaststroke.