It was a busy afternoon on Friday, March 23 at the El Camino College swimming pool. The ECC men and women swimming and diving teams battled it out with Rio Hondo College and Cerritos College, and topped both.
The meet included a total of 30 swimming events, ranging from 50 to 1,000 yards, medleys, and relays.
The Warriors’ dominance was mostly due to multiple individual wins. The ECC womens’ side featured three triple winners: Andrea Canchola won the 200, 500, and 1,000 freestyle; Cindy Ngo won the 50 and 100 freestyle, and the 100 backstroke; Clare Siverts won the 100 and 200 breaststroke, and the 200 individual medley.
The ECC mens’ side featured two double winners. Aziz Jaouhar won the 100 and 200 backstroke; Wyatt Kircher won the 200 freestyle and the 200 individual medley. Jaouhar’s time of 1:58.16 in the 200 backstroke was fourth all-time best in school history.
On the team front, the ECC men (Wyatt Kircher, Matthew Thorne, Brayan Salgado, and Aziz Jaouhar) won the 400 freestyle relay crowning event, while the ECC women (Andrea Canchola, Clare Siverts, Samantha Beattie, and Cindy Ngo) won the 200 medley relay.
ECC secured comfortable victories over Rio Hondo and Cerritos, even without fielding a team for the women’s 400 freestyle relay as one team member was sick.
Sandwiched between the two swimming halves, the diving events were punctuated by Jean Liu posting 218.35 on the 3-m board, only a week after her teammate Athena Katsouridis broke the 200 benchmark with a 200.20 at another dual meet.
Besides current ECC diving coach Laurie Dawdy, Liu and Katsouridis are the only two other women to surpass 200 points in school history, making this the top-scoring ECC women’s diving team combination ever.
