Submitted photos – Coach Jacob Ireland the local high school swimmers who qualified for the weekend NCS meet.
Eureka sophomore Amalia Baugh led the H-DNL charge at this past weekend’s North Coast Section swimming championships in what has a breakthrough season in the sport for the local league.
Baugh was one of five league swimmers to travel to Concord for the prestigious meet and the first Eureka Logger to qualify in more than 15 years.
Four Arcata boys — junior Yogi Trieu, senior Bryson Meyer, freshman Huck Russell and freshman Nathan Bareilles — each also qualified for section championships, matching the total number of Tigers to reach the NCS in the past 15 years combined.
“It’s been a really long time since Arcata and Eureka were able to send that combination of swimmers to (the NCS),” said Jacob Ireland, who coaches both high school teams, as well as the Humboldt Swim Club.
The trip to the NCS capped a breakout season locally that ended a 25-year wait for a local high school meet, with two of them held on back-to back weekends at Cal Poly Humboldt last month.
It was at the second of those meets that the five locals were able to post NCS qualifying marks.
Baugh competed in two events over the weekend and placed in the top-20 out of 40 competitors in each.
The impressive sophomore was seeded 37th in the 200 free and exceeded expectations with a 17th-place finish.
And Baugh saved her best for last, knocking 3.5 seconds off her previous best time in the event.
She also placed 20th in the 100 butterfly.
The Arcata boys, meanwhile, teamed up to place 25th in the 200 medley relay.
Trieu rounded out a big weekend by placing 21st in the 100 backstroke, while Bareilles finished 28th in the 100 breaststroke and Russell finished 29th in the 200 individual medley.
All in all, it was a memorable weekend for local swimming and in particular for the five H-DNL qualifiers.
Submitted photos
“Overall, the performances were fantastic,” Ireland said. “For all of them to place in the top 30 is pretty huge.”
Ireland is hoping this is just the beginning of a new era for local high school swimming.
This was just the second year the Loggers have fielded an official team in a long time, and numbers are on the rise with six swimmers on the team this spring.
The Tigers have qualified some swimmers for the NCS over the past decade and a half, all of whom were a part of the Humboldt Swim Club program.
But this year, Ireland had 17 Arcata swimmers on the high school team, including several younger swimmers.
“I’m really proud of the direction the program is headed in,” the coach said. “And we want to keep growing. We had a huge freshmen class this year.”
The second of last month’s high school meets at CPH also included teams from Fort Bragg and Mendocino high schools, and the feedback from the visiting teams, according to Ireland, was very positive.
“The competition was great and they were fired up,” Ireland said. “We received a lot of good responses from the other high schools.”
And the coach hopes this is just the beginning.
“We’d love to get more local meets on the schedule,” he said.
