Tigersharks impressive in meet

Several Carson Tigershark swimmers were able to set personal and season bests during the first two days of a major meet in San Jose.

The Tigersharks are competing at the USA Speedo Sectional Championships. On Friday, Lauren Costella and Evan Fischer were both able to complete impressive doubles.

Costella placed 11th in the 200 individual medley in two minutes, 24.31 seconds and came right back to take seventh in the 400 freestyle in 4:24.45. In both events, Costella was faster in the finals than the preliminaries.

"That shows the mark of a veteran athlete," Tigershark coach Jim Puleo said.

Fischer was 17th in the 200 I.M., improving his time from the preliminaries to the finals, finishing in 2:13.33. Fischer also placed 12th in the 100 breaststroke. He had a season best 1:09.50 in the preliminaries and finished in 1:09.90 in the finals.

Tara Theilemann has also had an impressive meet so far. On Thursday, Theilemann placed 14th in the 800 free in a personal best of 9:18.16.

Theilemann came back on Friday and placed 21st in the 400 free. She had a personal best of 4:31.76 in the preliminaries and finished in 4:32.27 in the finals. In the finals, her second half of the race was faster than the first half.

Ryan Hudson also swam to a personal best of 8:36.55 in finishing ninth in the 800 free. Ryan Costella had a season best in the event as well.

Hudson came back to swim a personal best of 4:13.72 in the 400 free. Ryan Costella swam 4:14.83 in the preliminaries and 4:16.01 in the finals in the event. The meet concludes on Sunday.

In addition, the Tigersharks have several swimmers in the Pacific Long Course Age Group Championships in Orinda, Calif. The meet began on Thursday and runs through Sunday.

Those in the meet are: Karen Burke, Kyle Costella, Abby Niehoff, Rebecca Niehoff, Barbara Perkins, Andrew Willett and Sean Costella.