Varsity boys and girls swim closed out a strong season with the boys team taking second overall and the girls finishing fourth in the 2025 Pacific Coast Conference Championships from April 29 to May 2. 

36 swimmers from JV and varsity qualified for finals on May 2, which girls swim captain senior Ashley Huynh sees as a reflection of how far the team has come this season. 

“Overall this season was a lot of bonding and making memories among underclassmen and upperclassmen within our team,” Huynh said. “The girls may not have placed as high as we had hoped, but there were a lot of people that had the best times at PCC.”

The momentum started early in the finals with a third-place finish in the boys 200 medley relay from seniors Derek Hitchens and Will Chen, sophomore Brandon Dee, freshmen Eli Siniak and Michael Wang.

Outstanding performance in individual events soon followed, with Chen taking first place in the 200 Free and junior Andrew Maksymowski taking first place by two seconds in the 200 Individual Medley individual races. In addition to 100 races, Hitchens broke both the team and league record with a time of 48.29 seconds.

“A lot of the new guys performed really well throughout the year, even making it to CIF,” Chen said. “League finals went really well considering we had to move some JV to varsity, showing that we had a really strong team.”

Siniak followed with a third-place finish, while Wang placed first in the 100 Free with a time of 44.82 seconds. Freshman Ben Liu came in sixth in the 100 Free Relay. 

During the 500 freestyle Maksymowski took first place, capping off a strong meet that earned him the title of League Varsity Most Valuable Player, as voted by the coaches. He later teamed up with Siniak, Chen and Hitchens to break both the team and meet records in the 200 Freestyle relay. 

“Even through the rainy season, we achieved so many goals this season, like beating Portola at the Pacific Coast Championships, which we just did,” Hitchens said. “This week we have CIF and then next week is State Championships which we have a good chance of winning, so I really look forward to seeing if we are able to get another win after our 2018 year.” 

Northwood now looks ahead to the CIF championships, where three girls and eleven boys have qualified to compete in individual events.