Dixon High's Swim Team Wins Golden Empire League Championship

The Dixon High School swim team won big at last weekend’s Golden Empire League championship meet in Marysville, capturing both the boy’s and girl’s titles in their very first year of GEL competition, and qualifying several of the team’s fastest swimmers to compete in sections next month.

“It was really satisfying,” said team captain Alex Gonzalez. “We worked really hard during our season, and it was just very satisfying for both teams to win again. It was a great feeling.”

Dixon will receive banners for the boy’s and girl’s team to put up in the school gym honoring their championship, where they will hang along side the numerous other awards that Dixon High has earned in swimming.

“Our team is just really strong, and I think that part of it is because both coach Gabe and I coach the summer league team,” said Dixon coach Adrienne Anderson. “We’ve been able to recruit the kids from the summer league team and bring them on the high school team and vice versa. Swimming has always been very strong at Dixon High.”

Dropping down from the Capital Valley Conference to the Golden Empire League this year was an unexpected move for the swim team, which has finished first in the higher-ranked CVC division for the last handful of years. This season saw Dixon matched up against schools in the GEL who sometimes struggled to field enough swimmers for a legitimate competition, and the Rams cruised to a 5-0 season.

“Both the Dixon boys and girls won the CVS the last four years,” said coach Anderson. “This was probably the sixth or seventh year running that the girls have won their conference championship.”

Dixon High has a large swim team comprised of 54 students. The boy’s and girl’s teams practice together, but are scored separately during the meets.

“I really like how high school swim is competitive compared to recreational swim during the summer,” said Gonzalez. “You need that mental edge in high school swimming, and there’s pressure knowing that you need to go fast to support your team and your school.”

The future for this Dixon team looks bright, with many up-and-comers looking to join the team in the off-season, and possibly a new, and more challenging, schedule in the works.

“I think the team will be just as large next season,” said Anderson. “We’re losing eight seniors, but I know from coaching the summer league team that there’s a lot of eighth graders who will be freshmen next year, so whoever we lose as seniors we will gain, and probably then some, in freshmen. Hopefully we will be able to schedule some competitive meets with some of our non-conference schools, and get more kids qualified for the section meet.”

The section meet will take place at Tokay High School in Lodi next month. Girls swim Thursday, May 12, and boys will swim Friday, May 13. The top 16 in each event compete in the finals on Saturday, May 14.

The following list of Dixon swimmers have qualified for sections:

Girls- Laura Garcia
         Gina Garcia
         Alexis Tyhurst
         Rachel Stalie
         Jadia Aikens

Boys- Alex LaBass
         Bryan Poole
         Zachary Schulman
         Will Pigozzo