After the recent Western State Conference Pentathlon, swim coach Matt Moon said that the swimmers are off to a good start and everyone did what they were hoping for, but there are some things to improve on in the upcoming season.

BC traveled to Ventura College on Feb. 12 for the WSC Pentathlon, where each swimmer swam in five 100-meter events: freestyle, backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke and individual medley. The times were then added up for overall men’s and women’s winners.

BC returner Erik Wood placed in the top three, battling for the second and third spot, said Moon. Wood finished second in the breaststroke at 1 minute and 3.73 seconds; third in individual medley at 56.93 seconds; fourth in both freestyle at 49.89 seconds and butterfly at 53.93 seconds, and placed sixth in backstroke coming in at 59.01 seconds.

There were a few of the newer swimmers who showed great improvement and had some unexpected times.

Sarah Mansour is one of those swimmers who has shown great improvement and keeps getting better and better times, said Moon. She had come out and picked up swimming just because she wanted to and was willing to put in the time and effort said Moon.

“She has spent a lot of her own time coming to lap-swim time, working on her starts, her turns, and she couldn’t even dive, probably like three months ago, and she was out there competing,” said Moon. “ It’s kind of cool to see that progression and see her improve.”

Moon said that the most exciting reaction of the meet was from Daniel Delgadillo, who swam a personal best in the 100-meter freestyle at 56.38 seconds. It seemed like he wasn’t expected to see the time he got when he saw it, said Moon.

“He was pretty excited, so it’s always fun as a coach to see that,” said Moon.

With early practices heavily consisting of building the aerobic base and drill work, the team swam pretty well, said Moon, but there are still some of the small things that will need to be practiced more.

“Some of the minor details: just the breakouts, the finishes, the turns, the starts, all those seemed a little sloppy overall as a team,” Moon said.

Some are just little things that can be fixed easily and others are just about getting the swimmers a little more comfortable out there. For some, it was there first ever swim meet, said Moon.

Even though the little things are what need to be worked on, Moon said that most of the swimmers are already noticing where their mistakes were being made before he even has a chance to tell them.

This is a good thing, said Moon.

“They are relating what they are doing wrong to what they need to work on. So, I think having that with them is going to help them progress,” said Moon.

The next meet will be at Mt. SAC on Feb. 26-27.

This will allow the swimmers to compete in a variety of races and relays, rather than just the 100-meter events at the pentathlon and see how they do.

“Looking forward to seeing how they react, in that aspect with different lengths and variety of races and the relays as well,” said Moon.