SD Prep Sports

SD Prep Sports: Swimming

2K3 CIF swimming finals

Ramona's Tucker swims to gold medal -- again

By Phillip Brents
Posted May 25, 2003

In order to remain at the top of one’s game, one has to maintain a constant level of focus.

In swimming, it’s just as much about energy.

At last year’s San Diego Section Division II championship swimming meet, Ramona High School’s Ryan Tucker had lots of it by winning the 50- and 100-yard freestyle events. Between events, he was a bundle of non-stop energy, hugging teammates and issuing victory whoops.

It’s been difficult to turn him off since.

Tucker capped his junior year at this year’s division finals meet by repeating his championship in the 100 freestyle while finishing second in the shorter distance.

He remains the only Bulldog male swimmer to ever win a CIF individual title.

Now he has three of them.

Ironically, he set a school record in the event he did not win at this year’s CIF finals.

Tucker had entered the May 24 meet at Mt. Carmel High School with the top qualifying times in both events — 21.99 in the 50 freestyle and 48.56 in the 100 freestyle. The 21.99 time tied the school record time he had set in winning last year’s 50 freestyle event.

He went 21.96 in the championship race to set a new school record — but finished second to University of San Diego High School junior Spencer Valentine, who clocked a personal best All-American time of 21.14.

Valentine, had finished third in qualifying with a 22.59 time, had never broken 22.00 in a meet before.

“I was hoping to go a lot faster,” said Tucker, who repeated his Valley League titles by timing 22.52 to win the 50 freestyle and 49.43 to win the 100 freestyle a week earlier at Palomar College. “In warm-ups, I felt great — warm and smooth. When I came out, I wasn’t smooth. I was rushing my strokes.”

But Tucker did not let his mood grow as gray as the weather, which was cold and cloudy throughout the meet. He still had enough reserve energy stored to return to the championship platform.

Just barely enough, as it turned out.

Tucker (48.90) had to overcome strong challenges from La Jolla Country Day senior Tyler Cuddy (49.72) and Valhalla senior Jeff El-Hajj (49.87) to win the gold medal in come-from-behind fashion. The Ramona swimmer did not lead until the final 10 yards of the race.

“I just kind of went out with everyone. I wasn’t thinking about my own race. The last 50, I just put in everything I had. It wasn’t easy. I just barely beat the guy (Cuddy). I was dead tired.”

Bulldog coach Steve Tucker, Ryan’s father, called the 100 freestyle a “different” race than the shorter sprint distance.

“It was not his best time but he pulled it out. He came back a lot better in the field. He came back with his second 50,” the Ramona coach said.

The younger Tucker holds school records in the 200 individual medley, 100 backstroke and all freestyle events except the 500-yard distance. The 500 mark belongs to sophomore Brett Bylund, who finished 10th in the event at this year’s CIF finals meet with a time of 5:09.31 (well off his prelim time of 5:04.81).

Besides Tucker and Bylund’s individual events, the Bulldogs (who finished seventh in the team standings) also qualified three relay teams for the finals. The Ramona foursome of Bylund, Will Adams, Rosten Veater and Preston Lujan finished 10th overall in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:54.45 while the unit of Tucker, Trevor Avery, Galen Eckenroth and Lujan finished fifth with a season-best clocking of 1:33.37 in the 200 freestyle relay. The quartet of Tucker, Avery, Eckenroth and Bylund timed 3:32.11 to place ninth in the 400 freestyle relay (after posting the top qualifying mark of 3:30.81 in the consolation finals).

Ramona freshman Shannon Lambert finished 12th in the girls 100 butterfly event at this year’s CIF meet, timing 1:06.54. She posted a 1:04.72 entry time and 1:04.94 qualifying time.

The Bulldogs finished ninth in the girls 400 freestyle relay in 4:01.12 and placed 10th in the girls 200 freestyle relay with a season-best time of 1:50.03. Ramona set a season best in the 400 freestyle relay with its 4:00.71 time in prelim qualifying.