Mesa Men’s swimming has been a roll this season with an 8 meet winning streak and are back-to-back dual meet champions. “We’ve had a very successful year so far and now we’re actually on an eight meet winning streak continuing from last year. I cant think of the last team in our conference to do that,” said coach Nathan Resch, who has been Mesa’s swim coach for 9 years, “We’ve been winning our dual meets pretty handily too. We’ve really been putting in good work with our training. The team has come together in a very positive way. We have a very talented core group. The team is setup very well for the championship meets” The team has a lot of great talent that has been preforming on extremely high levels.
The team solidified their 8 meet win streak March 30 starting with sophomore Neil Franka, who dominated the competition winning 3 individual events. Freshman Wyatt Schmidt won two events 1000 and 500 Free. Chon Pong Lao had great breaststroke swims winning both the 100 and 200. John Horne won the 200 Free, Bryan Moser won the 200 fly. Chris Evangelista was a double winner in the 50 free and the 200 individual medley. Jesse Vanderkolk swept diving winning both the 1-meter and 3 meter events. Mesa won every race on their way to a 206-58 win over visiting Rio Hondo.
Franka is the team captain and has been consistent all year long and has been close to times he’s finished at last year. “It should be an exciting end of the season for him.” Said Resch. Franka broke a 23-year long-standing backstroke record at the Mt. Sac invitational with a 51.8 time. Loa is our sophomore breaststroke specialist from Macau, China. “He’s also been very consistent with his times from last year and even close to some of his best.” Brandon Crabtree is a freshman and has already broken a school record in the 50 free style event with a 20.84 time. “He’s a very talented kid and is great in anchoring our relays as a sprint free-style specialist.” Horne and Evangelista are both freshman and multi-stroke specialists who’ve been tremendous help to the team. “We have a lot of depth on our team and I think that will help us in the upcoming conference meet for finagling in events and scoring points.”
Also at the Mt. Sac Invitational the team of Horne (backstroke), Lao (breaststroke), Franka (butterfly), and Crabtree (free) set the new mark of 1:34.80, which was also recorded as the fastest in pool history for the 200-medley. Crabtree and Franka teamed up with Evangelista and Pablo Zapata to win the 400-medley relay, breaking the meet record by 5 seconds in 3:28, which was also a pool record.
The team will finish up competing at the PCAC Championships April 21-23.