Pirate Swimmers Compete at WSC Championships

In their final competition of the season, the Ventura College swim and dive teams competed at the Western State Conference Championships Friday and Saturday at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. Caitlin Potter led the effort for the women with three individual golds while Arturo Medina won two golds for the men on Saturday. In Friday's diving competition, Roman Becher also brought home a pair of golds.

Five schools were represented in the meet, including Bakersfield, Cuesta, Mt. San Antonio and Santa Monica in addition to VC. 

Potter turned in another record-breaking performance for the Pirates. She beat her own school record in the 200-yard backstroke by over three seconds, winning the race with a mark of 2:11.51. She also claimed gold in the 400-yard individual medley in convincing fashion, swimming a time of 4:58.57, the third fastest time in VC history, and taking first in the 100-yard backstroke at 1:00.58, the fourth-best time in the school record books.

Potter also teamed up with Kiran Shah, Sierra Limneos and Lauren Mora to win the 200-yard freestyle relay in the first race of the day,touching in a season-best 1:45.03.

Becher turned in his gold medal haul on Friday's diving competition, winning both the 1m and 3m events with scores of 192.75 and 160.57, respectively.

Medina was tops for the Pirate men on Saturday with a pair of gold medal efforts. He won the 100-yard breast stroke in come-from-behind fashion in 1:00.22 before claiming the 200-yard breast stroke, winning by over seven seconds with a mark of 2:13.44. Medina also came in a close second in the 50-yard breast stroke, touching out of first place by just over half-a-second.

The Pirate women had a trio of silver medal relay finishes. The quartet of Potter, Limneos, Megan Findlay and Shah came in second in the 200-yard and 400-yard medley relay events alsong with the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Limneos had a pair of individual bronze medal finishes Saturday, coming in third in the 100-yard and 200-yard breast stroke events while finishing fourth in the 200-yard IM. Findlay was third in the 200-yard butterfly while coming in fourth and sixth, respectfully in the 100-yard and 50-yard butterfly races.  

Mora and Shah came in sixth and seventh place, respectively, in both the 50-yard and 100-yard freestyle events and Giselle Ortega and Natalia Rodriguez each garnered a fifth place finish in the 200-yard freestyle and 50-yard backstroke. Lauren Pierce was sixth in the 100-yard breast stroke and Stefanie Covarrubias was seventh in the 100-yard IM and eighth in the 50-yard backstroke. Emmie Johnson was eighth in both the 100-yard and 50-yard butterfly.

In Friday's diving competition, Shah was third in the 1m event, followed by Pierce (fourth), Yaneli Calderon (fifth), Ortega (sixth) and Covarrubias (seventh).

The VC men's 400-yard medley relay team of Medina, Brayden Lauritzen, Becher and Collin Spargur brought home the silver medal. 

Becher also was third in the 50-yard butterfly and finished fifth in the 100-yard fly. Spargur placed fourth in two events, the 100-yard and 200-yard freestyle, and also was seventh in the 50-yard free. Lauritzen, meanwhile, came in with three fifth place finishes in the 200-yard individual medley and 100-yard and 50-yard breast stroke races while coming in sixth in the 200-yard breast stroke.

Michael Andrews was fourth in the 200-yard backstroke and came in seventh in the 500-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke. Nathan Blok brought home a fifth place finish in the 200-yard backstroke.

The meet brought to a close the Covid-shortened 2021 Pirate swim and dive seasons.