(Walnut, CA) For the fourth time in the last six years, the Mt. SAC Men's Swimming & Diving Team has won the annual Mt. SAC Invitational Saturday (2/23).
The 34th Annual Invite, which featured 17 community colleges from Southern California, saw the Mounties win four of five relays, nine individual events and a new individual meet record.
"We are very proud of the team," Mt. SAC Swimming & Diving coach Marc Ruh said. "They did a great job. They got a lot of swims and really proved themselves this weekend to be a very strong team.
"This was a really good early-season showing for us. We have a lot of work ahead of us still, but we feel good about this start."
The Mounties finished first with 1,040.5 points, the highest Invite point total since their 1,063 points in the 2014 win. Mt. SAC also finished first in 2015 and '16.
Santa Monica College finished a distant second with 615.5 points and Orange Coast in third with 359 points.
The new meet record was set by Mt. SAC's Ethan Trieu in the 100 Individual Medley, with a time of 53.16. The sophomore broke the old mark of 53.91 set by Ryan Wang (PCC) last year.
Trieu, along with sophomore Jason Harary, won four events each. The other three wins for Trieu were in the 50 Freestyle (23.73), 100 Backstroke (52.50) and the 100 Free (47.76).
Harary's wins were in the 200 IM (1:56.64), 50 Butterfly (23.73), 200 Breaststroke (2:12.50) and the 400 IM (4:10.84).
The other individual winner for the Mounties was freshman Jonathan Olvera in the 200 Fly, with a time of 1:55.95. Olvera also had three second-place finishes and a third.
The four relay wins for the Mounties were as follows: 4x50 Medley, 1:37.88 (Trieu, Harary, Olvera, Edgar Cueva); 4x100 Free, 3:16.37 (Trieu, Olvera, Ryan Lin, Harary); 4x100 Medley, (Trieu, Lin, Olvera, Harary) and the 4x200 Free, 7:27.26 (Harary, Lin, Olvera, Trieu).
The top placer in the 1 Meter Diving event for the Mounties was William Struve in third, with 161.75 points.
With a combined men's and women's score of 1,191.5 points, the Mounties finished second to OCC with 1,407 points.
The men will compete in the first South Coast Conference meet on Friday (3/1) against El Camino and Cerritos. The three-way meet is at Cerritos College.
Other top placers for Mt. SAC:
200 IM – Olvera, 3rd (2:00.28)
50 Breast – Lin, 2nd (28.94)
100 IM – Harary, 2nd (53.66)
100 Fly – Olvera, 2nd (53.11)
100 Breast – Harary, 2nd (59.92); Lin, 3rd, (1:02.46)
100 Back – Olvera, 2nd (56.20)
1650 Free – Olvera, 2nd (17:04.35)
400 IM – Lin, 2nd (4:26.25)
4x50 Relay – Mt. SAC, 2nd – 1:31.52 (Cueva, Lin, Vinny Edwards, Jason Ku)
200 Breast – Lin, 2nd (2:17.49)
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For additional information, please contact the Mt. SAC Sports Information Office at 909.274.4630.