(Walnut, CA) With one of the more exciting and close finishes in years, the Mt. SAC Men's Swimming & Diving Team captured its fifth consecutive South Coast Conference Championship, on Saturday April 21st, at the Marie T. Mills Aquatics Center.
Mt. SAC finished with 726 points, followed by El Camino in second with 694.5 and Pasadena City College in third with 539.
The Mounties maintained a slim lead over El Camino College after day one (of the three-day finals), but the Warriors retook the lead after day two, by a mere 3.5 points, heading into Saturday's final day.
"It all came down to three events (200 Breaststroke, 200 Butterfly, 400 Freestyle Relay)," Mt. SAC Men's Swimming & Diving Head Coach Marc Ruh replied. "(El Camino) didn't have a breaststroker and we had some more flyers (Butterfly) than them."
"We just needed to not get disqualified on the last relay. The kids did great."
Freshman Ryan Lin won the 200 Breaststroke for Mt. SAC (2:10.46) and the Mountie 400 Relay team consisting of Zach Justus, Zach Anaya, Eric Amancio and Jason Harary took the championship in a time of 3:12.75.
Adding to Mt. SAC's point total was a second-place finish by Harary in the 200 Fly (1:53.52), a third-place finish by Spencer Chlebowski in the 200 Backstroke (1:59.12) and a fourth place by both Anaya and Chlebowski in the 100 Freestyle (48.66) and 1650 (17:12.30), respectively.
Prior to the final three events, the Mounties trailed El Camino, 620.5 to 609 points.
The drama then unfolded as Mt. SAC had the big advantage in the Breaststroke, as El Camino did not have any entrants. The Mounties took the lead (638-620.5) for the final time with 29 points from Lin and another nine from Joshua Bortis (9th).
Three other Mounties, Alex Neoh (5th), Jason Willman (7th) and Justin Bahn (10th) followed Harary, with his second-place finish, for 48 points.
That gave Mt. SAC a 686-660.5 advantage as El Camino accumulated 40 points with only three swimmers gaining points.
The title came down to the last event, the 400 Free Relay.
The Mounties continued their amazing streak of five titles in a row with a first-place finish in the relay with El Camino finishing second.
"That one was a nail-biter," replied Ruh. "It's good to be done with that on a high note. We are very proud of them."
Harary and Lin both won two events and finished second in the other to accumulate 57 valuable points in the three-day championships.
The next and final meet of the season is the CCCAA State Championships May 3-5 at De Anza College.
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For additional information, please contact the Mt. SAC Sports Information Office at 909.274.4630.
