As we all jump into spring, a special team of Royals is jumping into something else: the swimming pool. The Rosary swim team is back for their 2026 season! March 11 marked the official beginning of their season, on which they had a dual meet with Servite against Troy High School. Although still at the beginning of their season, they have made waves in their dynamic return to the pool. Let’s dive right in and learn about the team’s success.
Olivia O’Day, a senior member of the swim team, shared that the team’s first two meets have gone very well. She also shared some exciting information about her specific events, saying that her four events have “received times to possibly qualify for CIF, which is super exciting!” Qualifying for CIF this year would give swim two successful seasons back-to-back; in their 2025 season, the swim team’s wonderful efforts, hard work and great practices took them to the Pacific Hills League Championship, where they emerged as the champions, with Madilyn Ekstrom ‘25 becoming the Pacific Hills League Female Athlete of the Year. All of us here at the Royal Reporter will keep our fingers crossed that the events qualify.
Bella Olmos ’29 is a new member of the swim team that is very happy with the team’s success so far. She shared that the swim team won their debut meet against Troy, and that “I won my event, which was the 100 freestyle.” Similar to Olivia’s observations, she shared that “many of our girls won their events and had CIF consideration times!” Bella also informed us that the team had an away meet on March 17 against Portola High School (a dual away meet against Portola High School and Northwood High School at Portola) that she was looking forward to.
Now that we have heard from the players, it is time to meet the coaches: the two swim coaches are Servite alumnus Coach Adam Harita ’90 and Coach Gabriel Martinez. Coach Adam founded the Rosary triathlon team in 2018 and joined the swim coaching staff in 2019. He has been racing triathlon since 2011 and has had unbelievable success: he received the Ironman “All World Athlete” Gold award three times and has received the USA Triathlon “All-American” honors five times. Coach Gabriel has been coaching the Swim Royals for three seasons. He is the head coach for Fullerton College’s women’s water polo team, and has led them to win state titles twice, as well as brought them to win four titles for the Orange Empire Conference. He has done amazing work with many different groups, including Commerce Water Polo, the Mexican Women’s National Water Polo Team, the USA Women’s Youth Water Polo Team, Santa Ana College and Golden West College. With coaches like these, the Swim Royals are sure to have unwavering success.
On what they were most looking forward to for the rest of this season, Olivia shared, “For the rest of this season, I am looking forward to the time I have with all of the girls on the team, enjoying the great sunny weather!” Bella is looking forward to achieving her goals during this season: “I am really looking forward to training hard and cutting seconds from my time.”
The team has two more upcoming meets: on March 25, they will have a dual meet vs. Woodbridge High School and Irvine High School at 3:15 p.m. at Irvine High School. Additionally, the team’s final meet is scheduled for April 13 at 3 p.m. against Fullerton High School, and it will be taking place at Fullerton High School. Save these dates and come out to support the Swim Royals!
