Orange Coast, Sierra To Battle It Out For Men's Title At '23 State Swim/Dive Meet

Winning a state championship in men's swimming and diving is a numbers game. And since 1988, only six colleges have figured out the way to glory is qualify as many swimmers as possible and then have them place as high as possible. 

Going into the 2023 3C2A Swimming and Diving Championships at East Los Angeles College Thursday-Saturday, May 4-6, 2-time defending champion Sierra is poised to make another run while Orange Coast, which last won in 2018, is expected to go stroke-for-stroke in what could end up being a 2-team battle for the team title. 

Both teams have a meet high 18 swimmers entered into events but it's OCC that has a bevy of #1 seeds led by Ethan Smith, who has the state top seed times in the 50-yard freestyle (20.22), 100 butterfly (47.99), and 200 butterfly (1:47.56). Smith just happens to be the defending champion in all three events. 

Other Pirates going as favorites include Matthew Simpson in the 200 individual medley (1:50.46), Tatsuki Inoue in the 200 backstroke (1:47.87, defending champ), and Dane Howell in the 100 freestyle (45.49). 

OCC's biggest points weapons, though, are in the relay events. The Pirates are the top seeds in four of the five relays, which victories score 40 points for the winner, 34 for second and 32 for third. 

Sierra counters with second-seed times in four relays and a third seed in the 400 medley relay. The Wolverines also have #1 seeds in two individual events--the 400 IM in Jake Reuter (4:00.15) and in the 100 backstroke with Evan Terry (48.66, defending champion). More importantly, Sierra does have strong numbers in six different events with three or more swimmers among the top 10 seeds. The biggest potential scoring event is the 200 backstroke with #2 Terry, #4 Lathan Skeehan, #6 Kaleb Wolfinger and #8 Charles Fleming.

Scoring for individual events is 20 points for first, 17 for second, and points are scored through the top 16 places. 

Individually, Orange Coast's Smith and Sierra's Reuter may be battling themselves one more time for Swimmer of the Meet after both shared that award as freshmen at the 2022 state meet. Reuter won his titles last year in the 200 and 400 IM and the 200 breaststroke. Swimming at the same ELAC pool as he did in '22, Reuter is in position to win three events again. He is just .22 of a second behind Simpson in the 200 IM and only .36 from 200 breaststroke #1 seed Markus Stechbuchner of Mt. San Antonio. 

Golden West's Srboljub Filipovic is back to defend his 100 breaststroke title as the #1 seed in this year's event (56.47). 

San Diego Mesa's Ty Hunt returns to defend his 1-meter diving board title as his 246.95 SoCal champion score places him as a favorite for this year's dive. Hunt, who was fifth last season off the 3-meter board, was also the SoCal champ in the event and his 244.85 points led all divers coming into this year's meet. San Joaquin Delta's Tony Arteaga, the NorCal champ on both boards, is expected to give Hunt a run for his money. Sierra's Matthew Alvarado is another diver who could challenge for the '23 gold medals. 

The always unpredictable 1,650 freestyle has a trio of frontrunners in Golden West's Nolan Chomin (#1 seed at 16:12.13), Las Positas' Ryan Ridosko, and Cuesta's Stash Perry, who was the silver medalist last year. 

Release by Robert Lewis, State Meet SID for 3C2A/CCCSIA Executive Board member