| | Published July 10th, 2019
| Over 40 years of fun at Bottoms Up Meet
| | | By Jon Kingdon |  | | 9-year-old Lyla Mediano, Moraga Country Club Photo Gint Federas |
As a rule, being "odd" does not generally work in your favor and bottoms up is an invitation to take a drink. However, at the Bottoms Up Swim Meet held at Miramonte High School on June 30, being odd was an advantage for all of the swimmers and it had nothing to do with drinking.
At every other swim meet and tournament, the swimmers are grouped by ages of 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14 and 15+. Thus, the "odd aged" swimmers are always competing against older swimmers, if only by one year. The Bottoms Up swim meet has only the swimmers aged 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15, the ones at the bottom of the age groups competing only against their peers by age.
Run by Moraga Valley Pool, The Bottoms Up Meet has been an annual event for 44 years and is made up of the club teams in the Orinda Moraga Pool Association. The nine clubs that competed, listed in order of how they finished the meet were: Orinda Country Club (910), Meadow Swim Team (855), Moraga Valley Pool Swim Team (639), Orinda Park Pool Swim Team (617), Sleepy Hollow Legends (339), Moraga Ranch Swim Club (315), Miramonte Swim Club (240), Moraga Country Club (124) and Campolindo Cabana Club Marlins (35).
Trevor Rose, the head coach at Moraga Valley Pool says that it's just like a regular meet: "The meet has a championship feel to it. It's a fast pool and the kids are competing against their equals. We award the winners and those who place in the events and give a Most Valuable High Point prize to whoever scores the most total points in their three composite events for their age bracket."
Rhys Hire is 13 years old and attends Orinda Intermediate School. He looks forward to swimming for Miramonte when he begins high school and has been swimming in this event since he was 7 years old. Hire competed in the free style, back stroke and the butterfly this year: "It's great to race against people that you know. There is a little less pressure here than in the other meets."
With over 700 swimmers and 150 volunteers, it serves as a refreshing change from the 10-15 meets over the summer that have the older swimmers competing against the younger swimmers in each group. Besides the usual races, there was a mixed medley relay and mixed freestyle relay, both of which were comprised of two girls and two boys.
In the 70 races, there were two meet records set: Hailey Birkby (Sleepy Hollow), 9-year-old girls backstroke - 35.60 (old record 35.68) and Charlotte Shamia (Orinda CC), 11-year-old girls breaststroke - 34.53 (old record 34.65). The swimmer whose record she beat was Sophia Kosturos, a recent Campolindo graduate who will be swimming for UCLA next year.
Following are the high point winners for each group:
5-year-old girls, Reese Cobo, Meadow
5-year-old boys, Sean Baitx, Moraga Ranch
7-year-old girls, Teagan Devinger, Meadow
7-year-old boys, Henry Deal, Orinda Park
9-year-old girls, Amelia Knutson, Meadow
9-year-old boys, Miles Gaffney, Miramonte
11-year-old girls, Charlotte Samia, Orinda C.C.
11-year-old boys, Jax Cherry, Orinda Park
13-year-old girls, London Menard, Sleepy Hollow
13-year-old boys, Ana Pieper, Meadow
15-year-old girls, Ella Dulski, Moraga Valley
15-year-old boys, Dax Sherwood, Orinda C.C. |
 | | Photo Gint Federas | | | | | | | | | | | |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA