2025 Meet #1: Quail Hill Barracudas @ South Irvine Dolphins

Date: June 21st, 2025

By: Nate Williams, Co-President

Our first dual meet of the 2025 Irvine Swim League season (and our 30th season as a team!) started off as a cool morning, butquickly turned to a sun-filled OC day.  Our cherished Dolphins and their pod leaders rode the waves high against the worthy,streamlined Barracudas.  Our Dolphin family cheered on as we enjoyed the wit and variety of pump-up music from our volunteer announcers, Ernie Kwan and Brian Kissinger!

The first couple of meets are a great opportunity for those who are honing important skills such as turns and technique, especially in the Butterfly and Backstroke, where the sun can be blinding and disqualifications (DQs) are common. So the next time you are at practice, be sure to check in with your coaches for helpful tips.  Proper technique can positively influence your performance and bring down those disqualifications, so that pretty soon "getting a DQ" will only mean ordering an ice cream shake at Dairy Queen!

A special welcome to ALL of our newcomer and returning families this year, whether you are swimming for the first time or avid swimmers, we ALL contributed to the success of this Dolphin Team on Saturday.

Examples of this can be seen with Summer Williams, who broke a nearly 17-year old record in the girls 7-8 25 yardbreastroke coming in at 20.50s. Outstanding swim, Summer! Also, Adrienne Xie broke a long-standing record in the girls 7-8 25 yard backstroke with a time of 19.16s.  Way to go, Adrienne! Furthermore, Joel Chen improved by an astounding 10seconds in the boys 7-8 25 yard breastroke!  With our impressive start, the sky is the limit with the record-breaking swims and time improvements that lie ahead. 

Congratulations to the following Dolphins for earning ISL champs qualifying times:

Girls 5-6: Penelope Nguyen

Boys 5-6: Simon Xie
Girls 7-8: Isla Henderson, Mia Lee, Summer Williams, andAdrienne Xie

Boys 7-8: Bryce Alpert, Callahan Espiritu, Ari Mobasseri, Noah Mobasseri, and Bernie Yu
Girls 9-10: Katherine Chow and Edith Henderson

Boys 9-10: Levi Bouhbot, Cassius Espiritu, and Mason Nguyen

Girls 11-12: Hailey Alpert, Helena Blanco, Amelia Henderson, Carina Lin, Reese Williams, and Sophie Yu

Boys 11-12: Pasha Bassiri, Gui Friggi, Marcus Nguyen, Avi Shmurak, Carlo Soriano, and Kyle Wang

Girls 13-14: Kendra Alpert, Carmina Blanco, Olivia Efimenko, Kynsley Espiritu, Ella Jalili, Annabel Lin, Olivia Nguyen, Skylar Yeh, and Elle Zitzman

Boys 13-14: Brayden Chow and Jacob Shmurak

Women 15-18: Caprie Troccoli

Men 15-18: Kyle Chuang, Bear Lee, Jojo Lee, Noah Lee, Christopher Lin, Diego Tarry, Marco Pablo Tirado, Niccolo Troccoli, Eric Wang, Evan Wu, and Nathan Wu

And last but not least, a huge shout out to all the Dolphins who proved their passion and dedication to their craft by making considerable time improvements.  There are too many to list!  Let’s keep dropping those times!  And remember, every time improvement earns a Dolphin Dollar to be spent on goods and merchandise at the Dolphins Store!

The Summer of 2025 is shaping up to be an amazing season for our Dolphins.  Judging from the performances at this first dual meet, this team looks like it will make a lot of noise and turn a lot of heads at ISL Championships! These Dolphins feature enthusiastic competitors in the younger age groups, talented and committed swimmers in the upper age groups, and veterans on the coaching staff led by our fearless Head Coach, Lukas.  And let’s not forget the encouragement that our beloved mascot, Dewey the Dolphin, provides!

In addition to the outstanding performances by our Dolphinsswimmers, parent volunteers including timers, runners, concessions workers, set-up and tear down helpers, head table volunteers, and many others worked hard to ensure we had a successful first dual meet.  Everyone involved plays an integralrole to ensure that our swim meets run smoothly.  These meets don’t run themselves.  It truly takes a village!  Thank you for your support!

Congratulations to all for a successful first dual meet.  We return to our home pool to host the Courtside Stingrays on Saturday, 06/28.  See you all on deck!