Competing without one of their top swimmers, the Cerritos College women's swimming team split their South Coast Conference meet on Friday. The Falcons (4-2) recorded a win over host East Los Angeles College, 212-56, but were defeated by Chaffey College, 173-108. The team will host Pasadfena City College and Los Angeles Trade-Tech College at 12:30 p.m. in a conference meet.

Freshman Carla Harvey (Potomac Falls, VA HS) was a part of three first place finishes, while sophomore Katherine Gabayeron (Cerritos HS) had a hand in two wins for the Falcons. Missing from that list is freshman Raquel Gabayeron (Cerritos HS), who normally swims the butterfly, medley races and a member of relay races.

Harvey won the 100-yard butterfly for Cerritos with a time of 1:07.20 and also captured the 100-yard backstroke with a clocking of 1:05.70 and edged Alexis Hansen by less than one second. Stepping up to swim the 50-yard breaststroke was Gabayeron, who won the event in a time of 34.34, while she was defeated in the 200-yard freestyle and 500-yard freestyle by Chaffey's Karla Fuertez. In the 200-yard freestyle, Gabayeron posted a time of 2:00.83, which was two seconds off the first place time, while her clocking of 5:18.13 was also less than two seconds behind Fuertez and her winning time.

In the 200-yard medley relay, Harvey, Gabayeron, sophomore Yuridia Vela (Schurr HS) and freshman Angela Covarrubias (Paramount HS) won the event in a time of 2:01.61, which was five seconds ahead of the Panthers.

Freshman Teresa Zuniga (California HS) recorded a pair of second place finishes, as her time of 12:15.42 in the 1000-yard freestyle and 1:19.74 in the 100-yard breaststroke were short of winning  those events. Also posting second place finishes on the day were Vela in the 50-yard backstroke (32.14), Covarrubias in the 50-yard freestyle (27.13), freshman Milena Hernandez (Cerritos HS) with a time of 31.33 in the 50-yard butterfly and sophomore Janine Loera (Paramount HS) with a 1:10.50 finish in the 100-yard IM.

Photo by Daryl Peterson