With their sweep of visiting Pasadena City College (164-66) and Los Angeles Trade-Tech College (205-47) on Thursday at the Falcon Aquatic Center, the Cerritos College women's swimming team concluded their South Coast Conference dual meet season with a 6-2 record. The Falcons will have two more invitationals before they compete in the conference championships. They will travel next Friday to swim in the Golden West Invitational and then the next day compete in the Pasadena Invitational.

As a team, Cerritos won 10 of the events in the day, including both relay races. Pasadena City brought only three swimmers, but still managed to win the other six events in the three-team meet. But they did not have enough swimmers for the relays, and the Falcons easily won both. In the 200-yard medley relay, the quartet of Yuridia Vela (Schurr HS), Katherine Gabayeron (Cerritos HS), Raquel Gabayeron (Cerritos HS) and Angela Covarrubias (Paramount HS) registered a time of 2:04.20 to win by 16 seconds. It was Sharon Ku (Cerritos HS), Teresa Zuniga (California HS), Milena Hernandez (Cerritos HS) and Janine Loera (Paramount HS) that captured the final event of the day, the 400-yard freestyle relay. They finished in a time of 4:15.01 with LA Trade-Tech 28 seconds behind.

Winning multiple events on the day were Katherine Gabayeron, Raquel Gabyeron and Vela, with Zuniga winning once. Katherine Gabayeron took part in the 200-yard freestyle (2:05.75) and 500-yard freestyle (5:48.59) to win the events, while she was defeated in the 50-yard backstroke (34.14) by PCC's Arolyn Basham, who turned in a time of 33.68. Raquel Gabayeron picked up wins in the 100-yard butterfly by finishing in 1:02.92, with her time of 27.96 winning the 50-yard butterfly and edged PCC's Paige Watroba in both races. She finished second behind Shannon Cheung of Pasadena City in the 50-yard backstroke, as her time of 31.05 was shy of the winning finish of 30.48.

Vela beat the field in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:14.61, and also compiled 141.65 points to win the 1-meter diving competition. Zuniga easily won the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 12:18.01, with Vela as her only other competitor. Covarrubias was beat out for first place in three events and had to settle for second place. Her time of 26.90 was behind Cheung (25.42) in the 50-yard freestyle, while her 59.69 was also bested by Cheung (55.88) in the 100-yard freestyle. It was Basham (1:07.62) that topped Covarrubias in the 100-yard medley, as she finished in 1:10.37.

Ku placed second in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:21.23 and third in the 50-yard breaststroke in 36.30 and third in the 50-yard freestyle (27.74).

Photo by Daryl Peterson