While Long Beach has always been competitive at the major sports (CIF championship in football, semifinals in basketball and runner-up in soccer, etc.), the city has usually been even better in competitions that tend to be overlooked (we’d need a small army of sportswriters to cover everything the city’s high school athletes excel at!).  Enter Paulina Guzman, a junior from Millikan and Nykola Bodnar, a freshman from St. Anthony’s—these two competitors just won CIF championships in diving.  Guzman took home the girls’ Division One Crown while Bodnar won the boys’ Division Four title.

Guzman has won the CIF Masters title before (as a Freshman), and has competed in Olympic tournaments for Guatemala.

Also medaling from local schools were Deon Reid, a freshman from Poly who took fourth place and Larry Reinhard, Jr., a junior from Wilson who took sixth in the boys’ Division One title tilt.

Thanks to the astute reader who wanted to make sure we, and the rest of the city, acknowledged these competitors’ accomplishments—congrats kids!  With the number of underclassmen in that crop, it might be a good idea to make plans now for next year’s competition.