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For the first time in history, PCC’s Men’s Swim Team has won the South Coast Conference (SCC) dual season title, after beating Cerritos College and LA Trade Tech on Friday.

The Lancers have been competing for 32 years in the SCC. Last year, the men’s team placed third in conference. Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) claimed the title that year, and had been winning consecutively for nine dual seasons. The Lancers broke that winning streak this season.

The Women’s Swim Team won the majority of events throughout the season, but finished second in the conference behind champions Mt. SAC.

Freshman swimmer Roman Rostomyan classified Mt. SAC as their “toughest competitor.” Before the meet results were in for Friday’s meet, when asked about placing in conference, Rostomyan replied, “I have no doubt in my mind that we will win.”

The Lancers placed in either first or second in a majority of events Friday, getting the points needed to place highly in conference.

“Only Lancers beat Lancers. When we come to dual meets, that’s our focus,” head coach Terry Stoddard said.

Even though Rostomyan said his performance at the meet was “Not as well as I want to be doing,” he won two events, the 1,000m freestyle at 10:06.29, and the 50m freestyle at 22.52.

Ryan Wang, one of the team’s main breaststrokers, is no longer eligible to swim, and the team said they felt his absence.

“A lot of people step up and swim events that they normally don’t swim,” swimmer William Loo said. “The team is used to filling in gaps where people are missing.”

“If you have the whole team swimming, there’s no way anyone can stop us in conference,” swimmer Narek Yeghikyan said.

A team’s size helps its scoring. Because of family emergencies, the women’s team had fewer competitors than usual on Friday. “Our women’s team is really small so going against a team with more people, where they can get more points for more events makes it tough,” swimmer Sharon Perez said. She thought the team did well and dropped some time off her previous records.

“We support each other when we’re down. We tell each other, ‘It’s ok if you gained (time), we’ll work more on it in practice’” triple event winner Jocelyn Jo said.

Jo’s three victories for PCC was in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:11.44), 200-yard breaststroke (2:34.43), and 100-yard butterfly (1:06.33).

With such success this season, there’s now more pressure to perform well at Invitational and the SCC Championships.

For Loom, success is “to [be] able to step up under any circumstances and keep doing what you’ve always been doing,” Loo said. “The coach says to revert back to what we’ve been doing in the pool during training. Don’t let the elements of pressure get to you. Once you let them get to you, it throws off your game.”

Pasadena will swim at the 18th Pasadena Invitational at the Aquatics Center April 6-7 and compete with Mt. SAC at the SCC Championships on April 19-21 at Mt. SAC.

 

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