It’s a whole new season, a whole new team for the men and women’s swim and diving team.
“We graduated a lot of really good swimmers,” coach Corey Stanbury said. “But apparently everybody else is in the same kind of position as we are.”
The Warriors will have a meet at Rio Hondo on March 12.
” Rio Hondo would not be much of a challenge,” Stanbury said. “But Chaffey will be difficult and it should be a pretty close meet.”
Warriors give strong effort
At the Pasadena meet on Feb.25, the Warriors met with Pasadena Community College and Mt. SAC. Stanbury thought that the team performed well and had a couple of outstanding swims.
“That was the day the big storm was supposed to hit so it was cold,” he said. “It didn’t rain until our last event, but it was still cold so some of them got a little tight and were off somewhat.”
Stanbury said that he believed the men would beat Pasadena, but it would be a challenge. However, Stanbury also expected Mt. SAC to beat EC by a pretty good margin.
Swim team splits tournament
Mt. SAC won the event by three points compared to EC’s 64. EC may have lost to Mt. SAC, but as Stanbury predicted, Pasadena, with their 59 points underwent defeat by EC’s 72 points.
The Warriors’ first home game was against L.A. Trade Tech and Long Beach.
At the men’s meet Stanbury said that L.A. Trade Tech didn’t pose much of a challenge, but Long Beach he said was a completely different story.
Suprising win suprisingly
“I felt that Long Beach might have a pretty strong program, so I was surprised when we got down to the last couple of events with a brief lead on them.” Stanbury said. “It went down to the last relay to decide the meet, and even then the relay was decided by a tenth of a second.”
The lead Stanbury talked about was the men’s 400 yard freestyle relay. The swimmers included Jose Ortiz, Robert Baird, George Ishak and Pifer. EC finished with 3:30.40 minutes Long Beach who in second with a marginal 3:30.55.
Swimmers step up performace
With an outstanding performance by Ortiz, Baird, Ishak and Pifer, EC beat Long Beach by four points ending the day with 67 points.
In the second meet, EC collected 96 points and drowned LA Trade Tech with their total of 34.
Matt Pifer, 18, one of the fresh faces on the mens’ swim team. Pifer mainly does freestyles but will occasionally compete in backstroke and sprinting events.
On Feb. 25, both Mt. SAC and Pasadena beat both of the women’s swimming teams.
Women’s team off to slow start
Mt. SAC earned 94 points while the Warriors got 33. In the second competition, Pasadena with their 70 points beat EC with their 59.
Stanbury said that he expected the women’s team to defeat L.A. Trade Tech without much difficulty, but, like the men’s meet, he didn’t expect Long Beach to have much difficulty with their team either.
The Warriors with 71 points beat L.A. Trade Tech with their 44, but as expected lost to Long Beach by a wide margin 106 points to 23 for EC.
Ashley Stanbury, 18, a graduate of South High School, says that the reason behind the loss was that the women were short-handed.
The team is understaffed compared to last year’s team. They also carried less players and experience than their conference opponents.
“We don’t really have the strength in numbers,” Ashely said. “The other team had a full team.”
In diving, EC defeated both Pasadena and Long Beach.
Divers give strong showing
Despite a freshmen lineup, Lindsey Thurmond’s score of 164.15 beat out Pasadena’s 151.15.
Earlier in the day against Pasadena, Thurmond’s score of 148.55 was able to beat out Long Beach’s 130.95 as well.
Wendell Perkins with his 291.15 last Wednesday, beat out fellow EC divers Sean Anthony with a score of 135.85. Adam Vore took third place with a score of 110.70.
Against Pasadena, Perkins with his 238.70 points beat Long Beach’s 188.25 on men’s 1 meter diving.
