On the first day of the South Coast Conference Championships, the Cerritos College men's swimming team sits in third place, but saw a school record fall. The Falcons, who compiled 192 team points after the first day, will head back to Chaffey College on Friday with a 10:00 a.m. start to the second day and take part in seven events.

Highlighting the first day was the school record time of 1:26.07 in the 200-yard freestyle relay, which also netted the Falcons a conference championship in the event,. The quartet of freshman Joshua Owens (Kennedy HS), sophomore Joshua Hanein (Warren HS/Stevens Institute of Technology, NJ CC), freshman Marcus Delgado (La Serna HS) and sophomore Enrico Hidalgo (Kennedy HS) improved on their season-best time by four seconds and broke the old school standard of 1:27.39, which was set in 2011 by PJ Gabayeron, Hidalgo, Davey Brown and Mario Ibarra.

In the other relay event of the day, the 400-yard medley relay team of Hidalgo, freshman Eugene Runas (Long Beach Millikan HS), freshman Nathan Umpornpuckdi (Kennedy HS) and Owens, turned in a third place time of 3:36.70.

In individual races, the quartet that won the 200-yard freestyle relay earned the Falcons 49 team points, as they comprised four of the top six finishers in 50-yard freestyle. Delgado's time of 21.98 was edged for first place by Bennett Yuan of Mt. San Antonio College, who won the race in 21.28. Hidalgo finished fourth (22.29), Hanein was fifth (22.41) and Owens came in sixth place with a time of 22.43. In the 200-yard IM, Umpornpuckdi finished fifth overall with a time of 2:02.50, while Runas came in 11th place at 2:08.621. The best finish for a Cerritos swimmer in the 500-yard freestyle was 19th place by sophomore Kenny deWinstanley (Santa Fe HS), who turned in a time of 5:23.06.

Photo by Daryl Peterson