‘Bittersweet’ victory for Tasmanian Devils

EL DORADO HILLS — The El Dorado Hills Tasmanian Devils defeated the Broadstone Barracudas, 518-271, on Saturday at the El Dorado Hills Community Services District swimming pool.

In the 9-10 Girls 100 yard IM, Katie Sharp, 10, finished Event #1 in 1:28:46, earning the first victory of the day, and launched a Taz momentum that was unstoppable.

The 13-14 boys 200 yard freestyle relay was won by a mere 1/100th of a second by team William Kirk, 14, Brandt Parkerton, 13, John Moestopo, 14, and Cole Tilley, 13. A similar situation played out during the 15-18 womens 200 yard freestyle relay as Taz captured first place by team Baili Ebinger, 15, Samantha, Sruba, 15, Madisen Grinnell, 15, and Amrita Chimni, 17, and rapidly stole second by 14/100ths of a second by team Shannon Kiss, 17, Cailin Navikas, 16, Amanda Jones, 17, and Taylor Wetzel, 18.

In the 7-8 boys medley relay team, the quartet of Ethan Mueller, Charlie King, Patrick Sammon and Mitchell Scott set a new record time of 1:08:60.

“Our 7-8 boys medley relay team beat a club record of 1:13:64 from 1987,” boasted head coach Jason Brown.

Nostalgic presentations were made poolside highlighting six recent Oak Ridge High School graduates for whom Saturday was their final home meet.

Annie Harriman thanked her parents for “getting me on the team, taking me to all the meets, and being the best cheerleaders.” Harriman has 13 years of swim team memories. “I remember when I was swimming as an 11 -12 girl, I took eight seconds off my 100 free. Another great memory was when I received the ‘Most Inspirational’ award.”

Harriman holds two club backstroke records and a relay team record. She’s hoping to claim a league record this year at Champs. This fall Harriman will begin general studies at Sierra College where she will also swim and play water polo. She’s considering a career as a teacher.

Eric Rohrer also joined Taz at age 5. “I’m thankful to my parents for starting me on the team, and for my friends Josh, Annie, Shannon and Amanda. The best part of Taz has been getting to know the kids, hanging out and having fun. I love Buddy Night because I got to know even more kids.”

An outstanding memory for Rohrer happened in 2009 when his team broke club records for both the free relay and the medley relay. After completing general studies in Folsom, Eric plans to study Landscape Architecture at UC Davis or UC San Diego.

Amanda Jones started swimming on Taz at the age of 6. “Practices are fun. I love coaching and I love how family oriented Taz is. Everyone on our team is close. I’ve noticed that other teams aren’t always as close,” she said.

Jones’ fondest memory was when Taz won the Sportsmanship Award two years in a row.

“Winning the Sportsmanship Award was cool because it was important to my dad. He really wanted it for the team,” Jones said.

Jones will travel to Thousand Oaks to study Business and play water polo at California Lutheran University.

Taylor Wetzel will miss Taz. “It’s a good way to spend summers,” she said.  She thanked her parents for driving to meets early on Saturdays.

“And I thank the coaches for always pushing me to do my best. That’s what I love about Taz; it never matters what level swimmer you are, everyone matters, and everyone is expected to do their best,” she said.

Wetzel’ soon journeys to CSU Chico as part of the honors program where she will study Political Science, her sights set on law.

“I will really miss going to the block,” Megan Moestopo reflected. “This is it … it’s bittersweet. But I’ll always have the pool to go back to. That’s the thing about swimming, you might not race on a team, but you can get back into the water.”

Moestopo heads to San Fransisco State in the fall where she will study Business and Marketing.

Josh Verner thinks of Taz as family. He joined Taz at age 5, and he’s still friends with the same kids with which he started. “The coaching staff treats us like family. They’re really supportive,” he said.

Verner best remembers some come-from-behind record-breaking relays at Champs, and just hanging with friends at meets. He will attend Oral Roberts University where he plans to study Nursing and Intercultural Studies.

Taz head coach Jason Brown was already looking ahead. “We have to stay focused. We’ll be working on butterfly and breast, with minor tweaks here and there. The relays are very important and the team will focus on starts as we look forward.”

On Saturday, July 21, Taz swimmers visit the Loomis Basin Dolphins in hopes of securing a perfect regular season record of 7-0.

Contact Noel Stack at 530-344-5073 or nstack@villagelife.com.