Swimming head to head in the last lap of a women’s 100 individual medley (IM), Chloe Rodriguez sprinted past the competing teams and touched the time pad one second before another swimmer with a time of 1:12.
“I did not expect to win at all. This was my first time swimming this event, except once before in high school,” Rodriguez said. “I even told the other girls racing that they would all probably beat me.”
Over the weekend invitational at Mt. San Antonio College, swimmers beat their personal times or came in first place in their heats racing against several other colleges.
Swimming in the men’s 200-meter freestyle relay, swimmers
Vince Fiamengo, Noah Rubke, Kyle Atkin and Nicholas Timko worked together to come in first place in their heat with a time of 1:36.
“I guess we did all right. This is just the beginning and we are still getting in shape,” Timko said.
Although swimmers placed first in their heats, it does not mean much compared to the many other heats that make up the competition.
“Since the team is so limited this semester, we do not have nearly as many cumulative points as the other colleges do,” coach Corey Stanbury said.
As for personal accomplishments,
freshmen of the team Amanda Atkin shaved seven seconds
off her 500-meter freestyle with a time of 5:52.
“I expected to do better than my usual time because I have been working really hard. Compared
to practice, this swim is nothing to me,” Atkin said.
Swimming the 500-meter freestyle, Timko did well in his heat with a time of 5:06.
“This was my first distance swim in about a year, so I did not know what to expect. Since this was my first swim, I guess I did pretty good,” Timko said.
The diving scores are added to the swimmers’ score and returning diver Jose Bahena scored 269.30, putting him in first place of the diving portion at the Mt. SAC invitational.
“This meet was just to see my competition and I only used the dives I already knew. Right now, I am working on new dives that I might use for a meet before the finals,” Bahena said.
Stanbury said that it was good for the team that were no other Southern California divers because this means that Bahena will probably
go to the state championships, since he is already doing 25 points better than last year.
Representing the other half of the diving team, Jacque Periaswamy is diving for her first time on the team.
“This was my first meet ever. I never dove before in my life until I joined the team. My goal is to always do better than the previous meet,” Periaswamy said.
Divers are judged the second they step onto the diving board and are given five scores, each from a different judge, based on the hurdle, height, spin form and entry into the water.
In addition to the 13,000 yards of a four-hour swim practice every day, Stanbury hopes that the other workouts for the team does will help amplify the speed of the swimmers.
“The first few swim meets went well and now we know what shape everyone is in and the work we have ahead of us,” Stanbury said. “It takes a lot of exhausting work, but the swimmers can push themselves to excel.”