Swimmer Sets Record at Mt. SAC

Tai Nuntapramote added to the swim team’s strong start as he won a record-breaking five events at the San Antonio Invitational on Saturday. “What Nuntapramote did has never been done and it will probably be a long time before anyone replicates that,” said Head Coach Terry Stoddard.

“Tai swam five individual events and he won all five events and that’s never been done before,” said Stoddard. “He was in five events last year and didn’t win all five. In his second season, he is starting off stronger than last.”

During the meet, each swimmer competed in about five events, which made the competition more rigorous, said Stoddard.

“It was an outstanding meet for us. We trained really hard that week so I was concerned we’d be too tired but they were very excited and rose to the competition,” he said. “We were coming into this season very excited about what we can do and we left the meet even more excited because we feel like we are on track.”

According to Stoddard, this meet also served to further highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the teams.

“We saw a big weakness in our backstroke events. The athletes are going to have to really put in a lot of work in to improve that,” he said.

Further delving into the areas that need work, he also stated that sprints are weak.

Although the team has the greatest depth it has had in a while, Stoddard said that some of the members were not able to make the meet, mainly because they were sick.

“We had a couple people not at the meet that we are counting on being there for our championships,” he said. “We have a requirement of the number of practices and because they were ill they were not able to make the practices for the meet. We believe in training first and because you’ve trained you get to compete.”

“Our relays look stronger than ever. We started off eight seconds faster than we did last year in our 400 free style relay,” said Stoddard referring to the team’s strengths. Some of the key swimmers who are expected to add to the strengths of the team are the three captains of the men’s team, Alan Clemente, Nuntapramote and Nick Perezsandi, also sprinter Tabrek Seyssel, who was not able to make the meet due to sickness, and breaststroker William Landa.

On the women’s side, the three captains Arineh Danelian, Christina Sargent, both of whom were not able to make the meet, and Tennya Smith serve as strong attributes to the team.

Diver Merry Sanders, Sprinter Cyndi Huynh, and Shannon Adams and Miranda Gonzalez, who are both able to participate in freestyle events and breaststroke and butterfly events, will also contribute.

“I think we are going to be stronger as a team,” said Stoddard speaking about how the women’s team shines together as a whole. “We don’t have someone like [Tai] in the women’s team but we’ve got five or six gals here all clumped together in the same ability group. So, we are going to wear you down versus just knock you out,” he said.

Overall, the meet began the season with excitement.

“We believed going in, but it made believers out of us, that our vision was a good one,” said Stoddard.

The team hits the pool again on Friday at PCC’s Aquatic Center, against Mt. SAC and Cerritos College.