{"id":308672,"date":"2026-05-10T07:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T07:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/308672\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T07:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T07:06:12","slug":"gabi-brito-shines-for-santa-monica-in-southern-section-division-1-swim-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/308672\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabi Brito shines for Santa Monica in Southern Section Division 1 swim championships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gabi Brito went from being annoyed to elated in the Southern Section Division 1 swim championships<\/a> Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut.<\/p>\n

In her second event, the 100-yard butterfly, Brito glanced at the board, saw 51.65 seconds next to her name and thought she had missed her chance to better the 51.41 she clocked two days earlier at prelims, a mark that broke the Division 1 record of 51.53 seconds set by Santa Margarita senior Katie McLaughlin in the 2015 finals.<\/p>\n

Moments later she found out the timers had conferred and changed her official winning time to 50.74 \u2014 nearly half a second faster than the previous best of 51.20 she set at the Speedo Sectionals in Oceanside in February.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I soft-touched and some coach told me they\u2019d corrected it so I got a lot happier,\u201d the Santa Monica sophomore said. \u201cIt\u2019s a relief given that I\u2019m not going to state so this is my last high school meet of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The event schedule gave Brito little time to recover after winning her first event, the 50-yard freestyle, in which she swam a 21.66, again lowering the personal best of 21.93 she swam at prelims, two-hundredths of a second off the meet record set by Abbey Weitzeil of Saugus in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very surprised with the 50,\u201d said the 15-year-old, who also won both events as a freshman and led the Vikings to the Division 2 team title. \u201cI was confident I could go 21 again. I had more pre-race jitters than usual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brito is looking forward to the Speedo Grand Challenge on May 22-24 in Irvine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty pleased how both went considering I only had 15 minutes in between, but I do a lot of quick turnarounds and I know how to manage myself,\u201d added Brito, who later anchored both freestyle relays (Santa Monica was third in the 200 in 1:35.29 and first in the 400 in 3:38.40). \u201cI\u2019m only 15 so who knows what I can do? I enjoy any of the 100 events. If I have a rested 100 fly, I can go faster.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santa Margarita swept the team titles, the girls setting a section record with their 12th in a row, surpassing the 11 straight division titles Mission Viejo claimed from 1976 to 1986 under Jan Most. The Eagles totaled 383.5 points, almost lapping runner-up San Clemente (204). The boys won their sixth straight and racked up 421 points, breaking the Division 1 record they set in 2023 with a score of 405.<\/p>\n

Alyssa Ton of Fountain Valley repeated as the 200 and 500 freestyle champion. She won the 200 in 1:45.15 and the 500 in 4:44.26, better than her prelim times but off her personal bests (1:44.12 and 4:43.39) which she achieved at last year\u2019s finals.<\/p>\n

\"Fountain <\/p>\n

Fountain Valley\u2019s Alyssa Ton wins the 200-yard freestyle in 1:45.15 at the CIF Southern Section Division 1 finals at Mt. San Antonio College on Saturday.<\/p>\n

(Steve Galluzzo \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not too satisfied with the 200 \u2014 last year I was a little over a second faster,\u201d said Ton, a junior committed to Tennessee. \u201cI was more pleased with the second race because my fives can be all over the place. It\u2019s really easy to add time because it\u2019s a longer race but I was only a second off my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ton has her sights set on the 200 meet mark.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure the [CIF record] 1:43.01 will linger in my mind as next season comes around,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a possibility but it\u2019ll take guts to do it. I\u2019m not sure [about state] because I have a club meet right after, but I want to go as a senior.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norwood senior and USC commit Andrew Maksymowski, who was the fastest qualifier in both the 200 and 500 freestyle, defended both titles, winning the 200 in a personal-best 1:34.70 and the distance race in 4:22.85.<\/p>\n

Stanford-bound Connor Ohl of Newport Harbor won the 50 freestyle sprint for a second straight year in 19.96 \u2014 one-hundredth of a second off the meet record set in 2008 by Joey Hale of Redlands.<\/p>\n

Ryder Davis of Damien won the 100 backstroke in 47.99 and Corona del Mar\u2019s Ethan Lim won the 100 breaststroke in 54.85 with six of nine swimmers in the \u2018A\u2019 final posting times under 56 seconds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gabi Brito went from being annoyed to elated in the Southern Section Division 1 swim championships Saturday at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[129697,21172,129698,4794,129696,48,52,51,47,50,49,39734,1417,129701,5681,8267,58622,30258,129700,129699,315],"class_list":["post-308672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alyssa-ton","tag-division","tag-event-schedule","tag-final","tag-gabi-brito","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mark","tag-point","tag-prelim","tag-record","tag-santa-monica","tag-second-event","tag-southern-section-division","tag-swim-title","tag-team-title","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}