Northwood’s boys swim team opened its season in impression fashion.
The Timberwolves defeated Mater Dei and Santiago of Corona in a double-dual meet last week and claimed titles at the Irvine City Relay Championships and Villa Park Relays.
Northwood excelled despite not being at full-strength.
“It was good for all of us,” Northwood coach Alex Nieto said. “It’s nice to see that we’ve got a lot of depth.”
Nieto’s lineups for the breaststroke relays Friday and Saturday showcased the depth.
At the Irvine City relays Friday, Northwood used Kyle Charbonnet, Jason Wong, Henry Wu and Billy Monjay to finish second to University in the 400-yard breaststroke relay with a time of 4 minutes, 13.87 seconds. Monjay split a swift 59.19 anchor.
The Timberwolves then used Wong, Gabe Munoz, HwaMin Sim and Shayan Shaikh to capture the 400 breast at Villa Park on Saturday.
Munoz and Sim are part of Northwood’s strong freshman class that includes Hunter Hitchens and Shawn Lou.
Northwood won four races at Villa Park to outdistance Santa Margarita for the title.
Nieto’s focus remains on preparing for the Pacific Coast League. He also knows that University wasn’t at full-strength last week either.
“We take it with a grain of salt and prepare for a good upcoming season,” he said.
Santa Margarita’s girls set five meet records en route to defending their title at the Villa Park Relays.
DIVISION I DUEL
University boys will play host to Loyola of Los Angeles on Tuesday at 3:15 p.m. in a pairing of the top-two teams from last season’s CIF-SS Division 1 finals. The Trojans claimed their first Division 1 crown in May.
