Rams Swim To State Championships
By Shannon Cole
Las Positas College hosted the Coast Conference swimming championships April 21 through 23, and the women of City College’s swim team emerged from the pool with a few more medals hanging from their necks.
Freshman Raquel Pea’s 50-yard freestyle time of 23.96 seconds was enough to earn first place in the event. Her faster qualifying time of 23.82 was a mere 0.15 seconds from the decade-old state record of 23.67.
Pea earned a second gold medal in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 53.31. Her 100-yard butterfly time of 1:02.60 was enough for a fifth place finish.
Sophomore Daniela Fiestas-Paredes placed third in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:37.40. Fiestas-Paredes, also a staff writer for The Guardsman, finished her 100-yard breaststroke just shy of the podium with a fourth place time of 1:11.94.
As a result of their performances in the conference finals, both Pea and Fiestas-Paredes earned spots in the state championships to be held in Los Angeles May 5 through 7.
The 400-yard medley relay team of Emily Schattenburg, Daniela Fiestas-Paredes, Raquel Pea, and Liz Thompson placed seventh in the finals with a time of 4:48:52. The 400-yard freestyle relay team of Fiestas-Paredes, Thompson, Pea and Amelia Hobbs fared slightly better earning sixth in the conference with a time of 4:22:59.
Thompson also placed seventh in the 400-yard individual medley with a time of 6:36.06.
Endurance swimmers Emily Schattenberg and Alexandra Augustin progressed to the final round of the 1650 yard freestyle, finishing ninth and 10th respectively.
Raquel Pea earned the most points for the Rams this season with 54 individual points, followed by Fiestas-Paredes with 38.
As a team, the Rams placed seventh in the conference finals with as few as fourteen swimmers amassing 314 points. Topping the conference was the 23-person team of Las Positas with 881 total points.
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