The562’s coverage of aquatic sports in Long Beach is sponsored by the Aquatic Capital of America Foundation.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
Wilson senior Sammie Hamilton finished her high school career with a bang over the weekend at the CIF State Swimming & Diving Championships at Clovis West High School.
Hamilton won the 500 freestyle with a time of 4:47.30 and placed eighth overall in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:50.61. It was the fast starts that were key to her success, and Hamilton had a blistering opening split of 25.54 in the 500 race. Her time also earns her more All-American recognition.
Earlier this month, Hamilton won the CIF-SS Division 1 championship in the girls’ 500 freestyle, posting a time of 4:46.63. She won the event by more than six seconds over the field, and was less than seven seconds off the Division 1 meet record.
“It’s all kind of gone so fast for me,” Hamitlon said of her high school career. “I feel like I was just at a different level just a few years ago when I started at Wilson as a freshman. I switched club teams and went through a lot of big changes and worked a lot harder.”
At the Moore League finals last month, Hamilton repeated as the 200 and 500 freestyle champion in historic fashion with two league records and All-American standards. She also anchored a big win in the 200 free relay and 400 free relay, the latter of which also set a league record.
“I used to want (to make history and break records) and now I can understand why that’s actually happening,” Hamilton said. “I put in the work, harder than I’ve seen a lot of people. I made it happen. I put a lot of work into being super good at what I do.”
“It’s just exciting to see everything come together,” said her mom Elle Hamilton after Sammie broke records at the Klaus Barth Invite.
Also at the CIF State meet, Long Beach Poly sophomore Lucas Jue placed fifth in the 500-yard freestyle at 4:25.44.
The Long Beach Poly boys’ 200 medley relay was 32nd with a time of 1:36.76 in the preliminaries. Poly senior Sofia Brys went 55.92 in the 1000 butterfly prelims.
