Coaches
President and Head Coach - Kyle Kikuta
Kyle began swimming at the age of 7 for the Pinehurst Piranhas. He swam club for San Jose Aquatics and Valley Splash. In high school, Kyle swam for 4 years on the varsity team at Valley Christian, and then 2 years at West Valley College. The last 10 years, Kyle coached high school, club, and cabana teams. He is the Head Coach of the Almaden Riptides and Head Coach of the Shadow Brook Sharks cabana team. At Bellarmine, he was part of the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st CCS Championships. He also coached the Sharks to the League Championship in 2011 and 2019.
Kyle has also coached many Pacific Swimming All Star Meets: Pacific Coast All Star Meet, North American Challenge Cup and the Zone All Star Development Meet.
Kyle was also recently elected as the Age Group Chair of Pacific Swimming.
Coach - Nik Kikuta
Nik has been swimming for more than 20 years. He started swimming at Pinehurst when he was 6 and moved on to San Jose Aquatics and finally Valley Splash. He then swam 4 years of varsity at Valley Christian High School and 2 years at West Valley College.
This is his 4th year coaching USA swimming, the first two years coaching at Valley Splash.
Coach - Meghan Hall
Meghan started competitive swimming at age 6 and hasn’t left the pool deck since. She swam for Almaden Swim and Racquet Club turned Quicksilver Swimming for 7 years and the Almaden Gators cabana team for 11 years. She also swam and played water polo throughout high school at Archbishop Mitty and continued to play club water polo at UC Davis where her team won the National Championships in 2018. Meghan started teaching private swim lessons at age 16 and coached the Almaden Gators in 2017 before instructing kids and adults throughout college with the Aquamonsters Swim Team and UC Davis Campus Recreation. Meghan is so excited to be coaching the Riptides this season!
Coach - Kelly Rockwell
Kelly has been swimming for over 15 years. She swam for the Shadow Brook Sharks from age 5-18, then went on to coach the team in 2022. As co-head coach with Kyle Kikuta, she lead the Sharks to Most Improved for the 2022 cabana season.
During high school, Kelly swam for Leland's varsity team and swam for Almaden Riptide starting in 2014. Kelly then returned to Riptide in 2021 to coach.
Kelly is excited to coach Almaden Riptide for her second year. She looks forward to assisting in the ongoing improvement and success of all Riptide swimmers.
Coach -
Luke Anger
Luke first stated swimming for the Encore Dolphins back in 2014 before swimming cabana in 2015 for the Montevideo Piranhas and has been swimming ever since. In addition, he also swam all 4 years at Leigh High School. In 2018 Leigh introduced the water polo team he’d thought to try it out and loved it -- a new opportunity to spend more time in the water and to stay in shape.
In December 2021 he got hired as a swim teacher at AVAC, later he would then become one of the pre-comp coaches. Today he plans on swimming 2 years at West Valley and see where that takes him in his athletic career.
Coach - Amanda Rockwell
Amanda has been in the water swimming since 7 years old and coaching for over 6 years. She swam for club, cabana, and high school varsity.
Amanda coached Shadow Brook Sharks cabana league team and helped the team win the championship in 2019. She began coaching for Almaden Riptides at its start in 2014. She then took a brief break during the pandemic from 2019 to 2021 to focus on her career as a Budget Analyst at NASA. Amanda is thrilled to get back into the coaching scene and help swimmers grow.
Board of Directors
Kyle Kikuta - President and Founder
Katie Ciciarelli- Team Manager
Eric Burk-
SafeSport
Carol Chiu - Registration
Sally Cumming -
Volunteer Coordinator