CIF North Coast Section Championships Feature Tons of Returning Champions

2023 CIF North Coast Section Swimming & Diving Championships

• May 4-6, 2023 (Diving May 4, Swimming May 5-6)
• Concord Community Pool, Concord, California
• Short Course Yards (25 yards), high school championship prelims/finals
• Meet Site
• Psych Sheets

The 2023 CIF North Coast Section Swimming & Diving Championships, one of the best section championships in the state of California, kicks off with diving on Thursday before a Friday/Saturday swimming meet.

• 2022 results
• 2022 team standings

For the first time in 2023, the Paralympic races will count toward team scoring, with the winners of those events grabbing 2 points and the 2nd-6th place finishers scoring 1 point each. While that wouldn’t actually have changed many standings last year (the Liberty girls would have moved into a three-way tie for 17th place with 2 more points), many of the section’s top teams entered para swimmers last year. That includes the runners-up from Northgate, whose freshman Tyler McMillan swam both the 50 and 100 free last year.

The Campolindo girls and De La Salle boys are the defending champions, and both teams placed 5th at last year’s California State Championship meet.

Girls’ Preview

The Campolindo girls had a young team last season and are the favorites again this year, though Carondelet was only 14 points back last season and also return a cast of stars.

That includes 200 IM Section Champion Stephanie Iannaccone, a senior and Harvard commit, but it will take a lot to match up with the loaded group of returners for Campolindo.

Carondolet also returns most of their big contributors, led by the defending 200 and 500 free champion Bailey Hartman, a junior. Hartman won the 200 free and 500 free comfortably at last year’s Section Championships, though this year she’s entered to race the 100 free (4th seed) and 500 free instead.

Hartman didn’t swim last year’s State Championship meet, though she would have been a huge favorite in the 500 free. Her 4:33 at Winter Juniors is one of the fastest times by a high school student in history. She’s committed to swim for the three-time defending NCAA Champions Virginia in fall 2024.

But Campolindo returns a cast of stars as well. Jasmine Fok, a junior, is the defending champion in the girls’ 100 fly. She started her club season in the fall off with a hot start, swimming a new personal best of 54.59 in the 100 fly in November, though she hasn’t matched that time since.

She is the #2 seed in the event at this year’s meet behind Irvinigton senior Angela Quan. Quan hit her taper before last year’s high school season, but her results this year indicate she’s wound up more for this two-week stretch.

Campolindo sophomores Adriana Smith and Emilia Barck went 1-2 in the 100 backstroke last year as sophomores, including a 54.27 win for Smith. She’s back for another round this season, though Barck doesn’t appear on the psych sheets and doesn’t seem to have raced for Campolindo this season.

Barck is also the lone piece of the Campolindo winning 400 free relay who appears to be missing this year. Their winning 3:25.92 relay last season was made up of four sophomores, including Fok and Smith.

Outside of that team battle, keep an eye out on the San Ramon Valley breaststroke duo of Raya Mellott and Kayla Gregory. Mellott, a sophomore, is the top seed in 59.65 and Gregory is the #2 seed in 1:03.79. They went 2-3 last season, and with the champion graduating are the favorites this year.

Mellott is the ace-in-the-hole for the San Ramon 200 medley relay, which is a high seed along with Carondelet and the 2017 state champions Monte Vista, who return a strong core that performed well in the relays last season (including a 200 free relay title).

Boys’ Preview

The boys’ meet was also a tight one last year between the top two teams, with De La Salle beating Northgate by 15 points (the two were well clear of the field).

Just like the girls’ meet, a lot of the biggest names were underclassmen last season on the boys’ side as well. That includes the champions of all of the freestyle events, and most of the top performers as well.

California High’s Owen Berry returns as the champion in the 200 free (1:38.83) from last season, but even as a senior and the title-holder he can’t rest on his laurels. Dougherty Valley’s Ethan Wang (1:39.16) also returns, as do the top four finishers and eight of the top nine from last year’s Section Championship.

In the 500 free, it’s Wang who is the defending champion, but that rae is very much the same story: he swam 4:26.60 last season, is trailed by Granada senior Jack Hendrick (4:26.95 last season), and the event returns the top four and eight of the top nine.

Devyn Caples from Amador Valley is the top seed this year with a 4:29.40. That’s already faster than he was at this meet last year (4:30).

The front-running teams are more heavily involved in the sprint freestyles, including De La Salle senior and UCSD commit Zach Elian. He is the defending 100 free champion (44.44) and the top seed in both the 50 and 100 free this season.

The 50 free will be without Simon Lins, the defending champion from Piedmont. Lins, another Virginia commit, is a senior this year and swam at least one meet for Piedmont, but isn’t entered in the North Coast Section meet.

The depth of the returning swimmers even extends to the relays. Monte Vista returns all but one leg of their winning 200 free relay from last season, and none of the top four relays last year had more than one senior.

Last year’s Northgate winning 400 free relay was all underclassmen (including two sophomores and two juniors).

Other names to watch for on the boys’ side include Dougherty Valley freshman Songrui Wu, who is the top seed in the boys’ 200 IM in 1:48.50 and the boys’ 100 fly in 48.13.