Women’s Swimming & Diving Owns Golden West Invite, Men Place Second
The Riverside City College swimming and diving program participated in the Golden West Invitational on Friday morning, which acted as their first full meet of the 2020 campaign. The Tigers earned multiple top marks with the women placing first and the men placing second.
The women routed the competition by accumulating a total of 494 points. The next best finisher was Golden West who finished with 187 points.
Leading the charge for Riverside was sophomore Amelia Bennett. She produced a trio of first-place finishes coming in the 500 Free (5:38.32), 100 Breaststroke (1:16.80) and 50 Fly (29.08). She topped each of her seed times highlighted by finishing nearly one minute faster in the 500 Free.
Sophomore Hannah Beth Cain stood atop the podium twice with top marks in the 100 Back (1:05.57) and the 50 Back (30.44). She, too, bested her seed times by a handful of seconds. Sophomore Liz Bouffort matched her counterpart's first place marks with victories in the 200 Free (2:04.93) and the 100 Free (56.20).
Sophomore Michelle Hiller placed in all three of her events highlighted by a gold medal finish in the 50 Free (26.02), while freshman Victoria Hernandez touched the wall first in the 100 Fly (1:06.12).
Freshman Isabelle Ritter earned a set of second place finishes in the 50 Free (26.21) and the 200 Free (2:06.53).
The men were slightly edged by the Rustlers by 81 points. They finished with 269 total points with only 17 swimmers in comparison to the Rustler's 28 swimmers.
Sophomore Erick Fathoni picked up right were he left off last season by sweeping his events. He placed first in the 100 Fly (51.18), 100 Breaststroke (58.78) and the 200 Free (1:43.88). Freshman Fernando Duenas followed with a pair of first place nods coming in the 100 Back (56.72) and the 50 Fly (24.35).
Freshman Justin Gomez hauled in the gold in the 50 Free (22.07).
The Tigers will continue action on Friday, March 6 for the first Orange Empire Conference (OEC) showdown of the season.