The Bakersfield College women’s relay team and other female swimmers qualified for the California Community College Athletic Association Swimming and Diving Championships that was held April 29-May 1 at Mt. San Antonio College.
The BC women’s 200-yard freestyle relay finished fourth overall, with a time of 1 minute, 41 seconds. Alexander Brigitte, Sara Brady, Karina Nafarrate and Katie Lopes competed for BC in the team relay.
“It’s the best finish we’ve had as a program. In our third year, we finished ranked 13th overall in the state,” said BC swimming coach Charlie Pike.
In the 800-yard freestyle relay, the BC women finished 11th with Brady, Jordyn Hammet, Nafarrete and Katherine James on the team.
James, Brigitte, Brady and Lopes competed in the 400-yard freestyle relay and finished sixth, with a time of 3:39.
James finished seventh in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:18 and finished 10th with a time of 1:58.48 in the 200-yard freestyle.
The BC women finished 13th overall out of 27 teams, with 63 points. Orange Coast College won the women’s overall title with 362 points.
The Ventura men won the men’s title with 347 points. BC had no men qualify for state.
At the Western State Conference championships on April 22-24, the BC women’s relay team finished first in the 200-yard freestyle relay. The women’s 400-yard and 200-yard relay teams both finished third. Both of the BC men’s 200-yard freestyle teams were disqualified.
The BC women finished third overall with 522 points. Ventura’s men and women teams both placed first.
James finished fifth in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:21.73.
BC’s Lopes and Brigitte finished second and third respectively in the 50-yard freestyle.
Pike was pleased with what he saw at the WSC championships.
“I thought it went awesome. All the kids dropped time from where they were at the beginning of the season, and now they’re swimming fast at conference.”
“We were just out of second,” Pike said. He added that the lack of a diving team hurt BC men’s and women’s scores.
“Without diving factored in, we would of definitely been second. For the guys, we would have been fifth without diving factored in, but we ended up seventh.”
Pike said that he was looking forward to next season and is making preparations already.
“It looks good. We have all our girls except two coming back next year (Brady and James). I’m looking forward to having a strong team,” said Pike, who took the position of swimming coach in 2008.
“For us, as a program, it’s the first time we’ve had relays qualify for state, since I’ve been coaching here.
Two of our women’s relays in conference won overall. It was a really good year. The season finish was fantastic. I don’t have any complaints.
Everything seemed to come together at the end.”
Pike announced that the swimmers of the year awards would go to Nick Marquez and James, awards for most improved swimmers went to freshmen Danielle Smith and Cory Hebebrand, and the coaches’ award went to Juan Olmos.