The Torrey Pines High School swimming program continued its winning ways as the boys team won its 10th straight CIF title at the section championships at Granite Hills High School on May 10.
Falcon boys swimmers had multiple podium finishes, including sophomores Aidan Copeland and Hamilton Gates who tied for the 100-yard freestyle title with a time of 45.72. Aidan would go on to take second in the 50-yard freestyle and Hamilton placed second in the 200-yard freestyle. Junior Lukas Stein took second in the 200-yard IM and senior and boys team captain Kale Lozano finished third in the 500-yard freestyle.
The Falcon freestyle specialists teamed up to win both the 200-yard freestyle and 400-yard freestyle relays with a line-up of Aidan, Hamilton, Lukas and Kale.
The girls team were runners-up, building on strong performances from junior Aya Ferguson and setting two new section relay records. The girls team had won CIF for 11 straight years but for the last four years have run into the powerhouse that is the San Marcos High School girls team.
In the 400 freestyle relay, the team of sophomore Anita Qian, freshman Carolyn Han and junior Katerina Wietfeldt anchored by Aya took down a record that had stood since 2018. The Falcons recorded a new 200 freestyle mark (1:34.16) to sur their fourth-place showing at last year’s state meet, with a team of senior Sophia Kelley, Anita, Aya and Katerina.
Aya recorded repeat titles in the 200 freestyle (1:47.82) and 100 freestyle (49.93), Anita took second in the 100 backstroke, Katerina won the 50 freestyle and placed third in 100 backstroke and Sophie finished second in the 50 freestyle.
Following the section championships, Coach Richard Contreras was able to take 10 of his swimmers to compete in the state championship meet on May 15-17 at Clovis West High in Clovis.
Contreras has coached the swim team for 28 years, winning 24 CIF titles in that span. What impressed him the most about this 2025 version is their enthusiasm for competing.
“Every year it’s not hard to generate enthusiasm, it just generates itself because we’ve had so much success,” Contreras said. “The kids look forward to that and want to perpetuate that legacy of the program…We’re pretty dominant and it’s really a lot of fun.”
At the state meet, the Torrey Pines girls were unable to top the section records they set in the 200 and 400 freestyle relay. The Falcons placed sixth in the state in the 200 freestyle relay and 11th in the 400 freestyle relay.
Aya battled a late-week illness to compete in the relays. She had been seeded second in the 200 freestyle (1:47.82) but ended up 21st with a time of 1:51.26 in the prelims.
“It can be tough coming off (the section meet),” Contreras said. “We’ll apply what we learned to next year.”
Just down the street at Canyon Crest Academy, a pair of backstroke specialists swim for the Ravens. CCA junior Darmen Yessengeldy won the 100 backstroke at the CIF section meet and his teammate Payton Lee finished as the runner-up. Darmen, who has already committed to swim for UC San Diego, finished fifth in the 100 backstroke (48.73) at the state championship meet.
The CCA boys also won the 200 medley relay in the CIF finals with Darmen, Tony Yang, Payton and Ronald Seto.
With a fairly young squad this year, Contreras is looking ahead to another great season of Torrey Pines swimming in 2026. One of the most promising coming attractions is the brand new pool, now under construction on campus. The San Dieguito Union High School District’s first aquatic center will feature a 15-lane swimming pool along with accompanying buildings to house locker rooms, team rooms and a concession stand.
This season, the storied swim team practiced at the Boys & Girls Club of Northwest San Diego in Solana Beach, with lane rentals at the less-than-ideal time of 8:15 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
“Next year we’ll be in our own home,” said Contreras. “Everyone is really excited and anticipatory, me included.”
UT writer Glae Thien contributed to this article.
