Ella Lesnever dives at the CIF Championships (Photo – Michael Lesnever)
Ella Lesnevor won her third and fourth swimming titles at the CIF Southern Section Division 4 finals on May 8 at Mount SAC.
Scott Phelps
She won both the 50-yard freestyle and the 100-yard freestyle championships, setting personal bests in both events and breaking a 15-year-old meet record in the 100. She is completing her senior year at Blair High School and is looking to break the record for most CIF swimming titles won in Pasadena Public Schools history, an 84-year-old record that stood.
Formative Influences: Swimming and Girl Scouts
Ella's prowess is the result of years of swimming. She joined her first swim team at age 7 and has been enjoying it ever since. She swam for the Beach Cities team in Redondo Beach before moving here to Pasadena in third grade. She swam for the Sea Tigers team in South Pasadena before moving to the Rose Bowl Aquatics team, where she continues to swim. “It's impossible to tell Ella's story without mentioning Girl Scouts and the positive teachings and experiences she gained from them, starting in kindergarten,” her father said. “Ella has earned the Girl Scouts' highest award, the Gold Award (the equivalent of an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts).”
Jackson Elementary to Blair Spanish Immersion Program
She attended Jackson Elementary School in PUSD where she participated in the Spanish Dual Immersion Program (DLIP) and then went on to Blair for middle school and high school. She completed the DLIP program in 10th grade at Blair and earned her California bilingual certification.
9th grade: First CIF title
Blair's swim team was in Division 4, which is for the smallest schools. Blair's team qualified in all three relays, which resulted in an all-girls team appearance at the CIF Championships that year. Blair won the 50-yard freestyle, earning her first CIF title. She also placed second in the 100-yard freestyle, but her fastest time did not qualify her for the state championships that year.
Grade 10: Won second CIF title and competed in the state championships
Blair moved up one spot to Division 3. Ella won the 50 yard freestyle, earning her second CIF title, and again placed second in the 100 yard freestyle, albeit at a higher level and tougher division. She qualified for the state championships in a special berth based on her times that year. She placed 29th out of 40 at state in the 50 yard freestyle.
Ella Lesnever holds her CIF Championship medal (Photo – Michael Lesnever)
11th grade: 3rd and 4th CIF titles, top 10 finish at state championships
This year, Blair returned to Division 4. The entire girls varsity team qualified for CIF again as Blair's 200-meter freestyle relay qualified. Ella won both the 50-meter freestyle and the 100-meter freestyle to win her third and fourth CIF titles, tying her with Dick Lyons, also from a Pasadena-area school, in the 1940s, for the most CIF titles won by a Pasadena public high school swimmer. He enlisted in the Navy SEALs and became a Navy admiral.
At this year's CIF Finals, Ella recorded a time of 23.17 seconds in the 50 yard freestyle and 50.25 seconds in the 100 meter freestyle – both new personal bests! She placed 4th overall in the CIF Southern Section in both events and qualified for the state meet in one of the five spots allotted to the Southern Section. At the state championships, she placed 9th in the 50 yards and 8th in the 100 meters. In 2024, 25,000 California high school girls will participate in swimming, and Ella placed in the top 10 in both events!
She will be a senior at Blair High School and is working to improve the facilities at the school.
She is looking forward to doing well at Blair School next year. She has been attending Blair School since the sixth grade. During that time, track and field has grown and become more recognized. In the seventh grade, she had a successful fundraising campaign for starting blocks and electronic timers, and now they have all that equipment. They can hold swim meets at home and have a team. Her family is grateful to Coach Daniella Nava, a math teacher at Blair School who coaches the swim team.
The university recruited her and she has a bright future ahead of her.
Colleges have recruited Ella based on her swimming talent and have extended her admission and scholarship offers. Division 1 universities begin recruiting on June 15th after a student's sophomore year, so she has been recruiting for almost a year already. Ella's future looks very bright.
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