State swimming/diving: East Los Angeles College is where records are made

by Robert Lewis, Pasadena City College/CCCSIA Sports Information,

(MONTEREY PARK, Calif.)--For the seventh straight year, the East Los Angeles College Swim Stadium is the host site of the CCCAA State Swimming and Diving Championships to be held Thursday-Saturday, May 4-6. In the first six years here, the Monterey Park campus pool has produced a staggering 47 state record swims combined between men and women.

The fast pool could produce more records in 2017 which is part of the reason why state swim coaches are happy to keep ELAC as a regular state meet location. 

This year's event features swimmers from Big 8 Conference men's and women's champion Sierra, Coast Conference men's and women's champion Las Positas, Central Valley women's champ Clovis and men's champ College of the Sequoias, Orange Empire men's champ Golden West and women's champ Riverside City, South Coast men's and women's champ Mt. San Antonio, and Western State men's champ Ventura and women's champ Santa Barbara City College.

Defending state men's champion Sierra and runner-up Golden West have the most state meet entries at 18 swimmers each. On the women's side, Sierra, last year's second-place finisher, far and away has the most state qualifiers with 19. San Diego Mesa and San Joaquin Delta have the next most with 11 each. Orange Coast is the defending state women's champion and feature 10 swimmers this year.

Two individual women's event champions return from last year in Orange Coast's Sierra Cox, the defending 500-yard freestyle gold medalist as well as a member of four state champion relay squads, and San Mateo's Erica Vong, defending 100 backstroke champ, and 200 individual medley silver medalist. Vong has the potential to break state meet records in the 100 and 200 backstroke. Three-meter diving champion Nicole Cox of Sierra also is back to try to defend her title.

Other top swimmers include Golden West's Samm Crocker, who owns the fastest 50 freestyle time and the second fastest 100 freestyle mark, Mesa's Anna Stahlak, topping the rankings in the 100 and 200 freestyle, and West Valley's Dominique Yoder, the fastest woman thus far in both the 100 and 200 breaststroke events. 

On the men's side, two of the more impressive swimmers are Golden West's Chadd Maurer, the defending state champ in the 200 freestyle who now is tops in the state in the 50 free, and Riverside's Maxence Bouvier, who took silver last year in both the 50 and 100 freestyle. But it's Bouvier's 100 breaststroke state top time that has been the talk of the town as his 54.19 seconds mark is .16 faster than Orange Coast's Jonathan Panchak's state meet record set last year. Bouvier may also challenge the state meet record in the 100 freestyle. 

Distance swimmer Drew Sipple of Santa Rosa is looking to score gold in the 500 and 1,650 freestyle events. Last year, he led for much of the mile race, but was overtaken in the final 25 yards as he settled for silver. 

Riverside has the state's fastest times in three men's relays events--400 freestyle, 800 freestyle and 200 medley. 

The prelims for all three days of the meet begin at 9:30 a.m. with the finals at 5 p.m. on Thursday and Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday.