Youth

Student helping Blair resume swim meets

By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski Pasadena Weekly Executive Editor

Ella Lesnever may only be a freshman at Pasadena’s Blair High School, but she’s been looking out for its best time. Even though we couldn’t have a home meet, we wanted to go to meets that qualify.” interest.

A member of the swim team, the South Pasadena teen partnered with the Pasadena Educational Foundation to raise more than $12,000 to purchase a push-button, semi-automated timing system for Blair’s pool last November.

The system works for swimming and water polo. In addition, Ella helped the Pasadena Educational Foundation receive a $10,000 grant from the Tournament of Roses Foundation to help purchase scoreboards.

Still, the school needs, per CIF (California Interscholastic Foundation), a fully automated timing system for times to be official.

“All swimmers want their times to count toward CIF,” said Ella, who has been competitive swimming since she was 7. “Therefore, I am continuing my fundraising efforts to purchase touchpads — about $10,000 for a set — before next swim season so we can finally host meets at home.”

Instead, all of Blair’s meets are away.

“We’re supposed to have two home meets this year, but we had to reschedule to the other pools so we could get CIF times. We had 10 events go to the CIF this year, which is the most in a long If Blair were to have meets, someone must lean over the pool and press the button. With the touch pad, they hit it and it stops the clock, making it hard to rig results, she said. With touch pads, they would serve as a backup. “Competitions are important to me and a lot of competitive swimmers,” she said. “When I learned Blair couldn’t have meets, I wanted to help, especially because they haven’t had meets in over a decade. We have a good team, but we don’t have the resources.” Ella said she’s going to purchase scoreboards soon. With the grant, she has helped raise $25,600 in the last year. By next spring, she hopes to have the touch pads and meets. The boys water polo team plays in the fall, from September to December, followed by the girls water polo team from January to March. The girls and boys swim season runs from March to the beginning of May. “I think a lot of people want to help our school,” Ella said. “We haven’t had the best reputation. We are a small school. We don’t have all the money and facilities to post all the meets and games that other schools can. We’re the underdogs. “We’re starting to show people that we’re getting better.”

For more information, visit youtube.com/watch?v=p9KkQ1RYNYk or bit.ly/ blairtiming

Talented swimmers

Blair’s swim teams qualified for 10 events at this year’s CIF Division 4 preliminaries and seven in the finals. The following are the results • First place girls 50-yard freestyle: freshman Ella Lesnever • Second place girls 100-yard freestyle: freshman Ella Lesnever • Seventh place boys 200-yard freestyle: freshman Reilly Espinosa • 10th place boys 500-yard freestyle: freshman Reilly Espinosa • 10th place girls 200-yard freestyle relay: juniors Katlyn Ong and Tabitha Hermann, and freshmen Jordan Fleischman and Ella Lesnever • 14th place girls 200-yard medley relay: freshman Ella Lesnever, and juniors Adia Rayburn, Katlyn Ong and Tabitha Hermann • 15th place boys 100-yard breaststroke: senior Jonathan Ong

Ella Lesnever is a freshman at Pasadena’s Blair High School.