Tracy Press

Tracy High swimmer Nicole Brown blazes through the 100-meter backstroke on the way to the section meet.

Every time swimmer Nicole Brown beats her best time in the 100-yard backstroke, she sets a school record.

The Tracy High junior broke the record on Friday with a time of one minute, 4.92 seconds during the San Joaquin Athletic Association trials at Lincoln High. During Saturday’s finals, her first-place time of 1:03.90 became the new school record. The previous record was 1:05.25, set in 2000 by Robyn Wilhelm.

Nicole Brown

"I knew I was going to have to go really fast or do something different," Brown said.

The difference Friday and Saturday was competition against one of the league’s other top swimmers.

"You could feel it. When we raced, we both knew we were right next to each other. It was a race, and I knew I wanted to win," Brown said.

Griffin got the best time in Friday’s preliminary heat, 1:04.48, and Brown was about a half-second behind, 1:04.92. On Saturday, they were even closer at the finish, with Brown in first with a time of 1:03.90 and Griffin at 1:04.18.

The two will race again next week, and will have the top swimmers from 15 other leagues to beat as well as each other.

Brown will represent Tracy in five events at the Sac-Joaquin Section meet May 8 at Tokay High School in Lodi. In addition to her backstroke time, her third-place time of 56.10 in the 100 freestyle at the SJAA meet beat the qualifying time. She previously qualified in the 50 freestyle, 500 freestyle and 100 breaststroke.

Tracy High senior Alyssa Britt qualified for the section meet with her first-place finish in the 100 breaststroke (1:11.50), and second-place finish in the 100 butterfly (1:02.19). Fellow senior Lindsey Sharpe had previously qualified for sections in the 100 butterfly.

All three girls, along with Whitney McCray, are on the 200 medley relay team, which took third at the SJAA meet and qualified for sections with a time of 2:01.64. They also make up the 400-yard freestyle relay team, which previously earned a spot at the section meet.

The Tracy girls varsity 200 freestyle relay team of Sharpe, McCray, Karina Hernandez and Sheena Sharifi also previously qualified for the section meet.

Junior varsity Bulldogs headed to the section meet are freshman Anna Lowell, who qualified in JV girls 100 butterfly with a first-place time of 1:09.03, and sophomore Tyler Black, who qualified in the JV boys 50 freestyle with a time of 25.31.

West High has three swimmers headed for the section meet.

Varsity swimmer Danielle Daviscourt took first place in the 50 freestyle (26.59) and second in the 100 breaststroke (1:15.55) at the Tri-City Athletic League meet Saturday at Tokay High School. She qualified for sections in both events.

In JV girls, Jennifer Porter took first in the 100 freestyle (1:00.86) and the 100 backstroke (1:11.68) to qualify for the section meet in both events. Kerri Carrick’s second-place finish in the 100 backstroke (1:13:48) qualifies her for sections.

West’s Joshua Rhynes took first place in the 50 freestyle (26.03) but finished a fraction of a second past the 26 seconds needed to qualify for the section meet.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments