8 records fall in Cesafi swimfest

Five individual and three relay swimming records were shattered during last weekend’s swimming competition of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi) at the Cebu City Aquatic Center.

Multi-titled tanker Loren Dale Echavez of the University of San Carlos (USC) led the record breakers by posting two new Cesafi standards in the women’s 18-and-over 50-meter butterfly and 100m freestyle.

Echavez finished the 50m butterfly in 32.29 seconds erasing the previous record of 32.47 while in the 100m freestyle, she timed one minute and 5.58 secs which bettered the previous mark of 1:08:40.

Another USC tanker Abegail Sakib also posted a new record in the 18-O 200m individual medley with a time of 2:50:23, eclipsing the previous mark 2:54:31 .

Other individual record breakers were University of Cebu’s (UC) Danielle Mae Ballesteros and Cebu Eastern College’s (CEC) Anthony Linn Navarro.

Ballesteros broke the girls 13-17 200m breast stroke record of 3:08:44 with a new time of 3:05:66 while Navarro finished the boys 13-17 100m backstroke in 1:08:34 which topped the old record of 1:10:44 .

USC also accounted for two new relay records in the men’s 18-O 4×100 freestyle and women’s 18-O 4×50 freestyle.

The USC men’s team posted a new record of 4:11:42, erasing the old record of 4:15:77 while its women’s squad bettered the old mark 2:07:20 with its time of 2:07:00.

The USC men’s team is manned by John Solon, Edgar Allan Jarina, John Beltran and Jebb Cane while its women’s quartet is made up of Loren Dale Echavez, Ara Denise Echavez, Lorens Goyenechea and Sakib.

The other new relay record was posted by UC via the girls 13-17 4×50 medley relay. The new record is now 2:27:03 while the old mark stood at 2:32:50.
The team is made up of Romelin Nina Ignacio, Merlyn Silva, Bethmay Arellano and Trina Caneda.

USC ruled the tertiary division with 71 gold medals, 33 silvers and 10 bronzes. Finishing second and third respectively were University of the Visayas (1-23-19) and Cebu Doctors University (0-0-3).

UC’s secondary swimmers tripped USC in the race for overall supremacy with a harvest of 28-19-5. USC finished second with 22-26-14 and CEC salvaged third place with 4-1-0. Sacred Heart School-Ateneo de Cebu (SHS-AdC) came in fourth with 0-8-16.

Named outstanding swimmers were Echavez and Beltran in the tertiary division and Navarro and Caneda in the secondary category.