Pirate Men Top WSC Swimming, Women Finish Strong Second

The Ventura College men's swim team ended the Western State Conference Championships Saturday in a familiar place.  the Pirates claimed their 13th WSC title in the past 14 years at the end of the three-day meet at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo.  Meanwhile the Pirate women finished a strong second place in the championships.

The VC men were led by a pair of WSC championship performances Saturday, the final day of the three-day meet.  Thomas Bunker began the day winning the 1650 yard freestyle with a time of 17:33.00.  Marcus Rodarte followed that up with a gold medal performance in the 200 yard backstroke in 1:56.87. James Heckman followed Rodarte by a second to claim the silver.  Greg Berardinelli also scored in the mile swim for the Pirates.

Brandon Haase led four Pirates who scored in the 200 yard butterfly, followed by Sam Robertson, Derek Krzyski and Tyler Bleiberg.  Jack Pickett, Kenneth Quach and Trevor Edwards all scored in the 100 yard freestyle while James Abernathy earned points in the 200 yard breast stroke.

Heckman, Austin Hammond, Krzyski and Rodarte capped the meet with a bronze medal finish in the 400 yard freestyle relay.

The Pirates finished with 598 points, ahead of LA Pierce (524), Canyons (471) and Bakersfield (439).

The team was buoyed by a surprise visit from head coach Larry Baratte, who has been out since March following cancer surgery.   Baratte, and associate head coach Mary Giles, who has headed the team since Baratte left, shared WSC men's coach of the year honors.

On the women's side, VC concluded their strong meet with a runner-up finish. Raquel Rodriguez had the best individual finish of the day, second place in the 200 yard backstroke.  Quinn Cotter and Brittany Camp also scored for VC in the event.

Delani Clark, Allison Olney and Christina Tellez augmented the Priates' team score in the 1650 yard freestyle while Paige Treloar-Ballard, Cheyanne Irigoyen and Scarlett Lund-Sidi all scored in the 100 yard freestyle.

Maria Petraitis, Allison Herman and Mikala Cvijanovich placed in the 200 yard breast stroke.

VC ended the day with a silver medal finish in the 400 yard freestyle relay with the efforts of Treloar-Ballard, Irigoyen, Rodriguez and Clark.

Ventura earned 583.5 points over the three days, behind Santa Barbara's 708.  LA Pierce was a distant third with 347 and Allan Hancock was fourth with 313.

The Pirate swimmers have a two-week window to continue their training before the CCCAA State Championships May 5-7 at East Los Angeles College.

The 2016 Pirate men's swim team won the program's 13th Western State Conference championship in the past 14 years.	The 2016 Ventura College women's swim team finished a strong second place at the WSC Championships at Cuesta College.