Coming off a perfect 8-0 dual conference title in the South Coast Conference, women’s swimming is poised to make a run at the SCC Championship title this weekend at East Los Angeles College.
Their biggest competition is expected to be rivals Mt. SAC, which finished 7-1, losing only to PCC.
Head Coach Terry Stoddard is tasked with preparing a successful team to not let their winning streak affect their performance.
“We’re poised to be a contender. Without a doubt,” said Stoddard after a Tuesday practice.
“You have to focus on the turns and the finishes. I strive every day to make hard work normal,” added Stoddard, which he uses as a motto.
In the sport of swimming, placing first and placing second comes down to fractions of a second. Ariahn Givens, who swims in the 50 and 100 freestyle, understands this better than anyone.
“It’s all about technique,” said Givens, “If you do one thing wrong, you could lose the race in a split second.”
Givens even has something of a personal rivalry with someone at Rio Hondo College.
“I hope I can pull it together and beat her at conference,” said Givens. “She’s at 24.90 and I’m at 25.07.”
Courtney Fukushima wasn’t joking around after practice but she is more focused on improving her personal best times over just focusing on winning the conference title.
“That’d be awesome,” said Fukushima. “I don’t know if we will [win] but that’ll be cool. Right now I think were mainly focused on getting our best times for conference and also trying to make state.”
The men’s swimming team, which has not had as good a performance, are also preparing to compete for their own title.
The championships will be at ELAC this Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
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