Bakersfield College dominated the pool at the Pierce College swim meet, winning both the men’s and women’s team competitions with two weeks left before the Western State Conference swim championships.
The Brahmas’ women’s swim team remained competitive throughout the meet, taking third place while the men’s swim team finished dead last in the team competition.
It was a disappointing day on the men’s side with only Sina Basiratmand taking top three by placing third in the 200m breaststroke.
Despite the shaky performance from the Brahmas, swimmer Ian Monterrosa, who swam in the 200m individual medley and competed in the 200m medley relay and 400m freestyle relay, remains optimistic that the team can still qualify for the Western State Conference tournament.
“What I want to improve on is my 400m and 200m individual medley and my 200m backstroke,” Monterrosa said. “I think we have a really good relay team as well. Hopefully we can qualify for conference.”
The women, on the other hand, were in contention throughout the meet. Swimmer Sara Booth finished second in both the 1000m freestyle and 500m freestyle. Briggitte Kroetz also had a strong day, finishing second in the 200m freestyle and third place in the 100m backstroke. Sophomore Darby Schuett rounded the day for the Brahmas, finishing third in the 50m freestyle and second in the 100m freestyle.
The Brahmas ended the day by finishing second in the 400m freestyle relay with a time of 3:56.07, just two seconds behind Valley College who had a time of 3:54.76 and finished second in the meet.
Brahmas swimmer Chiara Perbil, who performed in the backstroke, thought the team performed successfully but thinks that in order for the team to be successful they’ll have to start gearing down physically before the conference tournament.
“We’ve got to start tapering down,” Perbil said. “Our bodies have taken a real beating from all the meets we have been competing in. At the same time, though, we’ve got to focus through, keep our eyes on the prize and win.”
Bakersfield swimmer Shelby Payne, who is six feet tall, helped lead the way for Bakersfield women’s team. She took first place in both the 200m and 100m freestyle events and thinks her team has a good chance of winning the conference title.
“We are one of the hardest working teams,” Payne said. “We have a coach who pushes us really hard, we just got to keep working on the small details.”
The Brahmas next swim meet will take place at Pasadena City College with the Western State Conference championship just a few weeks away.
