CHS Swimmers Compete at State Meet

CHS Swim Team Report

The CHS Swim Team will be in Albuquerque for the 2025 NMAA Swimming and Diving State Championships on February 21-22, hosted by Albuquerque Academy High School.

The State Championship swim meet is a two-day, preliminary-finals format meet. The preliminaries will be swum on Friday, February 21, in which all qualifiers will compete in their selected events.

Swimmers placing in the top 16 will return to the pool on Saturday, February 22, for finals. Finals are divided into two heats: Consolation Finals (B-Finals) for those seeded ninth through 16th, and Championship Finals (A-Finals) for those seeded first through eighth.

Swimmers are allowed a maximum of two individual events plus relays but no more than four events total. CHS swimmers, Mason Dhenin and Olivia Jang had each qualified in four individual events, so they had to choose which events they would swim.

Junior Olivia Jang has qualified in the Girls’ 200 Yard IM, Girls’ 100 Yard Freestyle, Girls’ 100 Yard Butterfly, and Girls’ 100 Yard Breaststroke. After reviewing seed times and discussing it with the coaches, Olivia weighed her options and decided to compete in the Girls’ 100 Yard Butterfly and the Girls’ 100 Yard Breaststroke. She will also carry the Butterfly-leg of the Girls’ 200 Yard Medley Relay.

Senior Mason Dhenin has qualified in the Boys’ 200 Yard Freestyle, Boys’ 200 Yard IM, Boys’ 500 Yard Freestyle, and Boys’ 100 Yard Backstroke. Mason has decided to compete in only one individual event so he can compete in all three Boys’ relay events. For his senior season, swimming with his teammates and friends in the relays carried more meaning for him.

Mason will swim in the Boys’ 500 Yard Freestyle and carry the Butterfly-leg of the Boys’ 200 Yard Medley Relay. He will also serve as the anchor for both the Boys’ 200 Yard Freestyle Relay and the Boys’ 400 Yard Freestyle Relay.

Other individual-event qualifiers are freshman Benjamin Jang in the Boys’ 200 Yard IM and the Boys’ 100 Yard Breaststroke and junior Samuel Vega in the Boys’ 200 Yard IM and Boys’ 100 Yard Backstroke.

The Cavegirls Girls’ 200 Yard Medley Relay will consist of freshman Taitum Lindsey (Backstroke-leg), freshman, Tiny Martinez (Breaststroke-leg), Olivia Jang (Butterfly-leg), and sophomore Kimberly Quintana (Freestyle-leg).

The Cavemen will compete in three relays, which include Boys’ 200 Yard Medley Relay, Samuel Vega (Backstroke-leg), Benjamin Jang (Breaststroke-leg), Mason Dhenin (Butterfly-leg), and sophomore Kason Longbine (Freestyle-leg); Boys’ 200 Yard Freestyle Relay, sophomore Constantine Gonzales, senior Moses Mendoza, Kason Longbine, and Mason Dhenin; and the Boys’ 400 Yard Freestyle Relay, Samuel Vega, Moses Mendoza, Benjamin Jang, and Mason Dhenin.

“We’ve been prepping and training our kids for what they can expect to see at the state meet and what the meet will expect of them. We want to make sure that we’ve properly prepared them to compete at the state level,” said CHS head swim coach Samantha Segura. “This is truly an exciting time for all of us. As their coach, my goal has been to make sure our kids end this season knowing they gave their absolute best effort and that we, as their coaches, did our part to help them do it.