The Bakersfield College men’s and women’s swimming teams had two swim meets on Feb. 24 and 25 at the Mt. Sac Swimming and Diving Invitational Swimmers, both combining 318 points in total ending up on the 13 spot out of 22 schools. Feb. 24 events were more of the sprint events and the 25 were the longer events.

For the men’s swimming team, the three highest scoring swimmers during the two meets were Brian Bender, with 43 points in seven individual events; Andrew Martinez, 32 points in six individual events; and Steve Santana with 23 points in six individual events.

Bender did well in individual medley ending up in fourth place with 58.96, fifth place in the 100-meter breaststroke with 1:02.87, and was disqualified in the 50 breaststroke after a false start, which Coach Matt Moon said was questionable.

Andrew Martinez placed third in the 1650-yard freestyle with a time of 18:14.26, and also took eighth place in the 200-yard in the butterfly in 2:09.67.

For the women’s swimming team, the three highest scorers were Cynthia Maner with 14 points in seven individual events, Niquelette Rimer with 11 points in seven individual events, and Jennifer Quan, who had the most points of the team with 70 points in seven individual events.

Jennifer Quan had a successful swim meet during the weekend, taking first place in the 50-meter breaststroke with 34.45 and seventh in both the 100-meter individual medley in 1:08.27 and 200-yard breaststroke in 2:45.07.

Moon was happy with both teams’ performance during the meets and has a clearer view on where the teams are at and has a better picture of both their strengths and flaws.

“I was really pleased by both sides from top to bottom, some swam a little more and did great with times,” he said. “We’re mostly a mid-distance type team, not necessarily a sprint type team, so we see our strengths in mid-distance events.”

Moon mentioned what the team needs to work on. “One way we can move forward is we’re going to try to be a little more aggressive, because I feel like that’s somewhere where we lacked, not being as aggressive in the front end of the races we could and as we should. So that is what we are going to have to work on from here to our next meet.”

The teams’ next swim meet will be March 4 at Canyons at the WSC #1.