VC Swimmers and Divers Compete at Pasadena Invitational

The Ventura College men's and women's swimming and diving teams competed at the Pasadena Invitational hosted at East Los Angeles College Thursday through Saturday. The women's relays were dominant winning three of four races while Olivia Badaracco won a pair of golds. Meanwhile, the VC men won a pair of relays and Jaiden Monroe also earned two first place finishes.

The quartet of Olivia Decierdo, Cassandra Wallop, Faith Marshall and Badaracco touched in 1:43.24 to win gold in the 200-yard freestyle relay while Badaracco, Marshall, Decierdo and Avery Monson sam a 4:16.81 to win the 400-yard medley relay. Decierdo, Marshall, Ami Cruz and Badaracco posted a time of 8:44.26 to win the 800-yard freestyle relay and Badaracco, Marshall, Decierdo and Monson swam a 1:53.45 to capture the 200-yard medley relay.

Marshall won the 100-yard breast stroke, touching in 1:06.79 and Badaracco posted gold medal times of 59.94 and 2:08.43 in the 100- and 200-yard backstroke events, respectively.

Decierdo finished third in the 200-yard individual medley and Cruz placed fourth in the 500-yard freestyle and fifth in the 1650-yard free. Alexandria Williams finished fourth in the 3m diving and fifth in the 1m diving events.

For the VC men, the relay team of Monroe, Michael Ramirez, Parker Steen and Thomas Shea touched in 3:4.73 to win the 400-yard medley relay. Meanwhile, the quartet of Steen, Ramirez, Shane Speth and Monroe swam a 7:33.76 800-yard freestyle relay to win another gold.

Ramirez, Speth, Monroe and Shea placed second in the 200-yard medley relay while Steen, Speth, Shea, Monroe came in fourth in the 200-yard freestyle relay.

Monroe posted a mark of 1:54.01 to claim first in the 200-yard backstroke and he swam a time of 50.06 in the 100-yard back to capture a second individual gold. 

Daniel Anguita and Shea placed second and fourth, respectively, in the 1m diving event, and the pair reversed standing in the 3m event with Shea taking fifth and Anguita placing seventh.

Ramirez finished fourth in the 200-yard individual medley and was fifth in both the 100-yard IM and the 200-yard backstroke. Speth came in fifth in the 200-yard IM while Shea finished seventh in the 50-yard free. 

The Pirate women totaled 530.5 points during the three-day meet to finish in third place of the 10 competing teams. LA Valley won the meet with 698.5 points and El Camino totaled 594. Diablo Valley was a distant fourth with 402.50.

Meanwhile, the VC men earned 534.50 points to come in fourth in the eight team field. Cypress won the meet with 793 points and Diablo Valley was a close second at 764.5. El Camino came in third at 561, just ahead of Ventura, and LA Pierce was fourth.

The Western State Conference and Southern California Diving Championships will be held Friday Apr. 10 before the WSC Championships coming up Apr. 16-18 at LA Valley.