Swim to Win: Camas Boys Team Narrowly Defeats Evergreen Schools

Vancouver, WA — The 2x State Champion Camas High School Boys swim team hosted Friday’s meet at the Cascade Athletic Club’s “bubble” and narrowly edged out Evergreen Schools — Evergreen, Union, Mountain View, and Heritage — by just a few points.

Camas was down a few athletes (Zach Macia, Chris Xia, and Jack Harris), but the Evergreen swim competition is simply getting better.

”Since we practice with them,” said Camas Assistant Coach, Leslie Levesque, “we can see how much they’re improving. They swim well.”

Mountain View came out strong winning the 200 Medley Relay (Tim Huang, Justin Xue, Christian Madden, and Fred Grimshaw) with a time of 1:43.30. Union placed second; and Camas, third.

Mountain View’s Madden also won the 200 Free (1:53.39). Union’s Jack Gallo placed second; and Papermaker Austin Fogel placed third. Mountain View also won the 200 IM with Xue wining the contest, with Washougal’s Isaiah Ross placing second, and Union’s Nick Wahlman placing third.

Camas won their first event of the night as Jaden Kim won (23.06) with Papermaker Ben Taylor (23.11) placing a close second, and Union’s Val Tikhomirov placing third. Kim handily won the 100 Fly (53.73) with Washougal’s Daniel Brown placing second, and Union’s Ethan Chuang placing third.

Evergreen’s star swimmer, Ilya Zablotoviskii, won the 100 Free, barely edging out Taylor (49.89) and Union’s Grimshaw (53.03).

Washougal’s Ross handily won the 500 Free (4:56.74), followed by Madden (5:03.06). Gallow placed third (5:06.86).

Mountain View also won the 200 Free Relay (1:33.88) narrowly edging out Camas (1:34.58) and Union (1:38.88).

Ilya would also win the 100 Back (58.65) followed by Union’s Tony Kajino (1:00.16) and Mountain View’s Timothy Huang (1:02.31).

In the 100 Breastroke, Union’s Tikhomirov placed first (1:04.02) followed by Wahlman (1:06.36) and Xue (1:09.36).

Camas made up their point deficit in the night’s final event — the 400 Free Relay — by handily winning (3:37.09). Union placed second (3:56.64) and the Camas B Relay placed third (4:06.48).

Despite the win, it wasn’t the best Papermaker performance in the pool.

“The swimmers are doing their best to adjust to the new pool, but since we can’t all practice at the same time it’s created some challenges with team cohesion,” said Levesque. “Our foundation was taken away, and we’re still adjusting. The boys work really hard to accomplish what they have always done in the past.”

They are preparing for two more meets next week: one at the YMCA in Vancouver, and one at Kelso.