Only an arm length away from grabbing the wall, gliding into first place and finishing a 200-meter freestyle, Chloe Rodriguez realized she still had another two laps to swim at the Cerritos College competition.

“I thought I was done but then I saw the girl next to me do a flip turn and I realized I still had another 50 (meters) to swim. I made the flip but I had to get back into the motion of things because I had thought I was done. I was tired also because I was sprinting thinking I was on the last lap,” Rodriguez said with a finishing time of 2:13.

As for the men’s 200-meter freestyle, Nicholas Timko swam neck to neck against a rivaling team in his last lap and came in first place with a time of 1:49 with not a second to spare.

“I did much better than last week, which is good, but I still did not beat my best time of 1:43 from high school,” Timko said.

The El Camino Aquatics Team competed at a more intimate meet compared to last week’s invitational. The team swam and dove against Cerritos and Long Beach City College during the past weekend.

The larger meets usually have several people in one heat all with similar finishing times. This meet is a little different because there are only three competing teams, including us, coach Corey Stanbury said.

“At the smaller meets there are only a few people in one heat and sometimes it can be more intense and competitive than at a bigger meet,” Stanbury said while intently watching the swimmers race.

Making it almost look effortless, Jeff Craver swam all 40 treacherous laps needed to complete a 1,000-meter freestyle heat with a time of 11:24.

“This is the first event I swam all year and I did good to start off. Last year there were more distance swimmers to train with and help each other out. This year will be tougher because now there are not as many (distance swimmers),” Craver said.

Amanda Atkin swam the women’s 1,000-meter freestyle, finishing proudly in second place with a time of 11:52.

“I can’t tell if I did that good because this was my first time swimming this event at a meet. Jeff (Craver) and I usually swim in the same lane at practice since we are both distance swimmers and can push each other,” Atkin said.

Sprinting in separate heats of the men’s 100-meter backstroke event, Axel Seixas finished with a time of 1:05 and Noah Rubke finished a few seconds earlier with a time of 1:03.

“My time was not that good. Good is maybe 45 or 50 seconds. I guess after only a few practices it was pretty good though. We even had to go to practice this morning!” Seixas said emphasizing on the early morning practice.

We are always getting in some good swims and whether at an invitational or competition, it is still an opportunity to swim and get better Stanbury said.