GOLDEN WEST MEN STAND OUT ON FINAL DAY OF CHAMPIONSHIPS

Costa Mesa, Calif. - The Golden West College Men's Swim team completed the third day of the Orange-Empire Conference Swimming and Diving and Championships in dominant fashion. The meet was held at Orange Coast College which will also be the site for the 2026 State Championships in less than two weeks. Riverside City College was in command in the team race for all three days and won the team title with 874 points. Golden West extended the narrow hold they had on second place after both the first and second days to pull away from both Cypress and Orange Coast. The Rustlers totaled 700 points to outdistance OCC (626) and Cypress (618). Saddleback finished with 298 and Fullerton had eight points.

 

The comeback was orchestrated by a deep and potent third day lineup. Starting off finals with the 1650 free, the Rustlers placed four in the top eight spots. Avery Pellicano won his second event of the meet by competing the 66 length race in a top three State time of 16:15.38. Teammate Ryan Novak was second at 16:25.66 which puts him in the state's top ten. Daigo Fujita will be going to State again in the mile given his fifth place 16:52 effort. Taylor Juarez completed the distance quartet with an eighth place finish (17:25). The group improved by a total of almost four minutes with their efforts and gave the Rustlers 62 points.

 

The 100 yard individual medley had only one GWC swimmer but Boston Frost proved to be up for the cause as he secured third place with a 55.44 result.

 

The 200 yard backstroke was next on the agenda and the duo of Jack Wright and Szabi Kern came in fourth and fifth respectively. Wright dropped nine seconds to put up a 2:02.86 time and Kern improved by eleven seconds in the prelims and then dropped another four to record a lifetime best of 2:13.28.

 

The 100 yard freestyle was next on the schedule. One of the glamour events, this is always a hotly contested race where the difference between first and eighth place can be less than a second. Wyatt Mitchell, the winner of the 200 free the day before, popped a 46.22 to grab third and teammate Ryder Tonkovich came in fifth in 46.36. Talon Costello who had narrowly grabbed the final spot in the championship final with a superlative 48.08 prelims swim finished eighth overall at 48.62.

 

The 200 yard breaststroke featured five RCC swimmers in the top final but Michael Rodgers finished off his swimming career with a lifetime best of 2:15.71 to come in fifth. Matt Wolf gave the Rustlers eleven points with his eighth place finish (2:22.25).

 

The 200 yard butterfly was the last individual event of the meet and GWC was well represented with three swimmers in the top six. Taylor Juarez erased any doubt on whether he would qualify for the State meet by dropping a "bubble" time of 1:57 in the prelims to 1:55.84 in the finals. He accomplished this by going out strong and maintaining a great rhythm the entire race, remarkable when considering he had completed the mile race earlier that afternoon. Jack Wright was fifth in 1:57.87 but his prelim swim of 1:56 should get him a return trip to State in that event. Garrett Gendron put together a 2:06.35 swim good for sixth overall in an event that he picked up this year after earlier in his career being a distance freestyler.

 

The final event was the 400 free relay. Always a crowd favorite, this event leaves nothing left on the table as most teams save a special group to represent their school for the last swim of the meet. GWC came in as the second seed with a 3:13 time behind RCC's 3:11 and ahead of OCC at 3:15 and Cypress at 3:17. It was evident after the first leg that those entry times were going to get destroyed. Tonkovich led off for the Rustlers and gave Pellicano a half-second lead. OCC put Kaua Mota up next and with a leg of 44.86, he put the Pirates up by a second. Novak dove in and pulled even after two lengths and gave Mitchell, GWC's anchor leg, a lead of four tenths of a second. That was more than enough as he increased that to almost two seconds to have the Rustlers win in a time of 3:05.15 which will be the State's third ranked time.

 

Head Coach Tracy Maurer was elated with the meet overall but especially pleased with the third day efforts. "We have traditionally been strong on the last day but this one highlighted our depth and our heart. It was very cool to have guys perform the way they did to help the team get second overall in a great conference and get as many swimmers to qualify for the State meet as we did." He added that swimming the meet at the site of the championships with such keen competition and being able to drive themselves to the meet should all play to GWC's favor. "We know what it feels like to be here. We will roll it again in twelve days."