In their South Coast Conference opener at Long Beach City College on Friday, the Cerritos College women's swimming team split with their two opponents. The Falcons (1-1) earned a 135-70 win over Chaffey College, while they dropped a 143-91 decision against the host Vikings. The meet was originally scheduled to take place at the Falcon Aquatics Center, but construction forced the location change. Next weekend, the team will compete in the Cuesta Invitational.

On the day, Cerritos won three events and were led by Elisa Prohroff (Schurr HS), who earned two of those first place finishes. Additionally, freshman Jackie Oliveros (Gahr HS) won an event, while the Falcons also posted three second place finishes.

Prohroff won both of the distance races, as she posted a time of 13:26.58 in the 1000-yard freestyle, while her clocking of 6:07.82 beat the rest of the field in the 500-yard freestyle. As for Oliveros, she easily won the 200-yard backstroke, as her time of 2:44.06 was 27 seconds faster than her closest competition.

One relay team took second place, with the other coming in third place. The quartet of Oliveros, sophomore Jenny Parra (Schurr HS), freshman Lindsay de Haas (Hacienda Heights Wilson HS) and sophomore Andrea Macapagal (Sonora HS) recorded a time of 2:17.81 in the 200-yard medley, which was the first event of the day. The Falcons capped off the day by barely missing out on catching Chaffey for second place in the 400-yard freestyle with a time of 4:39.96. That relay team included Parra, Prohroff, de Haas and Oliveras.

In the 100-yard backstroke, Oliveros recorded a second place time of 1:17.86, with sophomore Jennifer Yanez (Gahr HS) a distant third place in 1:33.65. de Haas was edged out for first place in the 200-yard butterfly, with her clocking of 2:02.09 less than two seconds off the winning time. Macapagal finished third in both the 100-yard breaststroke (1:26.25) and 100-yard freestyle (1:04.16), with Prohroff adding a second place finish in the 200-yard freestyle (2:15.02), which was a close race to the end.

Photos by Daryl Peterson