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OCC MEN, WOMEN CAPTURE STATE TEAM SWIMMING TITLES!!!
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Monday, May 08, 2006
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PASADENA - Competing in the neighborhood of the "Stars", the Orange Coast College men's and women's swimming teams put forth several Oscar-like performances en route to team state titles at the 2006 California Community College Commission on Athletes Swim and Dive Championships last weekend at Pasadena City College.
"These state championships are bi-products of hard work and we got some amazing swims out of that hard work," OCC men's coach Anthony Iacopetti said. "We didn't focus on winning state. We focused on simply doing the best we could do when each event came up. We really kept our focus and excelled as a team."
The Pirate men captured their team title with a score of 508 points. Ventura (465 points) finished second, while fellow Orange Empire Conference resident Golden West (463) took third.
With the all of the times, places and numbers, perhaps the stat of the weekend was "zero." That equalled the number of individual titles won by the OCC men or women, yet, they still found a way to both bring home team state championships.
"That stat is still incredible to me," Iacopetti said. "That simply shows the depth of both of our teams. Everyone contributed to these titles and everyone can be equally proud of them. There are no 'big names' or egos on these squads -- just good kids who work extremely hard."
The key to the state hardware came from the relay squads, where several records were set.
The men's 200-yard freestyle relay foursome of Kevin McCoy, Damien Bernard, David Hwang and Michael Fessenden set a new school, meet and state record with a winning time of 1 minute, 22.43 seconds, besting the previous OCC best of 1:23.22, set back in 1992. Last year's meet and state record time of 1:22.50, set last year by Golden West, also was topped.
The men continued the fast start of the meet, which set by the women's 200 free relay quartet of Jackie Palmero, Tuesday Schellinger, Ashley Maher and Tiffany Gubala, who opened the competition by setting a new state record with a time of 1:39.75, topping Riverside's 2002 time of 1:40.56.
The foursome of Adam Jones, Bernard, Josh Knight and Fessenden added to the record books by setting a new OCC and pool record in the 200 medley relay with a 1:33.22, breaking the Pirates' 1992 time of 1:34.15 and the pool's previous best 1:34.34, set by Diablo Valley in 2002.
"The men have been ranked No. 1 most of this year, but for the women, this state title was more of a Cinderella story," Iacopetti said. "Never in our wildest dreams did we think we could win state, but both teams had strong showings at the (Orange Empire) Conference Meet and that carried over to here."
On the women's side, top-five finishes were turned in by Palmero in the 50 butterfly (second, 26.36), 50 backstroke (second, 27.68) and 100 butterfly (second, 58.34), the 400 freestyle relay (third, 3:39.66), the 400 medley relay (third, 4:07.27) the 800 freestyle relay (fourth, 8:09.66) and the 200 medley relay (fourth, 1:54.44).
On the men's side, top-five marks came from Fessenden in the 50 freestyle (second, 20.59), Andrew Simo in the 200 backstroke (third, 1:54.90), Bernard in the 200 individual medley (fourth, 1:55.31), Jones in the 200 backstroke (fourth, 1:56.33) and 100 backstroke (fifth, 53.38), Justin Taylor in 1-meter diving, (fourth, 396.85), Miles Sonnenfeld in the 200 backstroke (fifth, 1:56.95), the 400 medley relay (third, 3:29.96), the 800 freestyle relay (third, 7:06.68) and the men's 400 freestyle relay (third, 3:06.99).
"Perhaps the highlight of the whole thing came near the end when we had 50-60 people chanting our names -- that was pretty cool," Iacopetti said. "All we try to do here is teach the kids to learn from their sport so they can takes these experiences and apply them later in life. We're extremely proud of what we accomplished this past weekend as well as the entire season."
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