Corona del Sol was blown out of the water Thursday afternoon, as the girls’ team lost 128-55 to Xavier Prep and the boys’ team 141-45 to Brophy Prep.

Aztecs swimming coach Ron Musgrave wasn’t feeling too confident coming into the meet against Brophy and Xavier.

“We know that Xavier is defending girls state champs, we know Brophy has a long history of success, and we knew that’s going to be tough to hold up to all that firepower,” Musgrave said.

But despite the intimidation these two teams brought, Corona del Sol had a little bit of luck early on in the meet.

“We swept the 50 meter boys freestyle event,” Musgrave said, “so that was a nice surprise.”

Yes, it was a surprise. A few Brophy swimmers got disqualified after swimming in the wrong heat, so the Corona del Sol boys’ team came away with all of the points for that event.

This wasn’t the kind of disqualification that happens often. Brophy set up the meet like it was a championship: the slower swimmers go first and then the faster ones go after in their own heat.

Only, Brophy sent their fastest up first, leading to the multiple disqualifications.

According to senior Aztecs swimmer RJ Pankonin, getting disqualified is usually the result of a “lack of focus.”

But that didn’t seem to be the case for him. Pankonin swam a personal best in three of the four events he competed in.

Despite the Aztecs loss, the swimmers still felt good about their team’s performance.

“They probably won’t admit it, but we did pretty good,” Pankonin said of the boys’ team.

Junior Makenna Devlin agreed.

“I think our guys team is always really good,” Devlin said.

Though this meet didn’t play into the favor of the Aztecs, for Devlin it’s not always about winning.

“If we’re able to improve our times individually then that’s better than winning an entire meet.”