Swain, Aubrecht cap season in Dublin
Piedmont High School’s Sebastien Swain and Claire Aubrecht both made it to the finals of the North Coast Section Meet of Champions but were unable to qualify for the California Interscholastic Federation championships.
The Meet of Champions was held May 22-23 at Dublin High.
Swain was attempting to make it back to the state meet but found himself boxed in during the first lap of the 800 meters. He was never quite able to fire and finished a disappointing 10th in two minutes, 1.53 seconds. Old friend James Prater of Bishop O’Dowd, who Swain is usually right next to, won the event in 1:53.95. The top three automatically qualify for the CIF championships.
“I was trying to win this thing,” Swain said. “The race didn’t go exactly how I wanted. I had a pretty bad start. Just a lot of fighting, a lot of boxing, people moving in and out made it quite difficult. I understand why it didn’t go my way today.
“You can’t always perform the way you want. We move on, we look at next year.”
Swain, finishing up his junior season, had surgery for a circulatory issue after running at the state meet last year. He didn’t compete in cross country, instead focusing on his return to track. He had a strong season and looked to be in perfect position after qualifying on May 22 with the second-best time in the field at 1:55.45. He had also run a leg on the Highlanders 1,600 relay team, which did not qualify for the finals.
“I tried to make up positions on the backstretch,” he said. “I had two races yesterday. I came into the day and my hip flexors were not ready to go. They were pretty sore. When I got to 200 and I knew I wasn’t going to be back in the race because I wasn’t able to push when I wanted to push, I kind of just left it at that.”
This was the first time since his surgery that Swain had to compete on back-to-back days. He said his fitness isn’t quite where he wanted it to be.
“But I’m still doing pretty alright,” he said.
Aubrecht, also a junior, concluded an outstanding season, claiming school records in both the 100 and 200. She lowered both marks at the Meet of Champions. She finished third in her heat of the 100 trials in 12.39 but did not qualify for the finals with the No. 10 time (the top eight made it to Saturday). She surprised many later in the 200, qualifying for Saturday by finishing second in her heat and eighth overall at 25.55.
Then, she finished fifth in the finals in 25.46. Essence Anderson-Brown of James Logan won the event in 23.87.
“This is the first time I’ve gone to finals,” Aubrecht said. “I’m really happy about that. I’m really proud that I’m able to be here. Hopefully, I get to state next year in my last year. I just missed it by two places. Hopefully, next year, I’ll go just a little bit farther.”
Aubrecht first broke the school records at the West Alameda County Conference championships on May 8. She then lowered both times at the NCS Bayshore championships on May 16, then again at the Meet of Champions.
“I’ve had that goal for a while,” she said. “I kind of had my eye on it for a while. I didn’t really think I could get it. This year, I was more focused on dropping time and focusing on my individual events and the results came with it.”
Aubrecht said she would like to run a 100 in the range of 12.1-12.2.
Carondelet won the girls team title with 46 points, edging St. Mary’s-Albany with 42. De La Salle won the boys championship with 69 points.