Pirate sophomore Mitchell Ongstad swam the 50-yard freestyle Thursday with a time of 20.25 to claim the state title in the event Thursday at the CCCAA State Championships at East Los Angeles College. As a team, the VC men were in fifth place overall after one day of competition in the three-day event.
Ongstad swam 20.17 in his morning preliminary, and won held on in the evening's final to defeat the defending state champion from Golden West College by 11 hundreds of a second. Ongstad's preliminary time was the third fastest in state history, and bested the national juco champion by 13 hundreds of a second, making Ongstad the national champion as well.
The Ventura relay team of Marcus Rodarte, Ongstad, Cesar Martins and Alec Kruse placed third in the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:23.60. Meanwhile the team of Marcus Rodarte, Kaleb Rodarte, Chris Sands and Ongstad came in sixth in the 400-yard medley relay (3:28.77).
Austin Hammond came in 11th in the 500-yard freestyle (4:42.34) and Marcus Rodarte was 13th in the 200-yard individual medley (1:57.33) to round out the Pirates' scoring for the day.
VC is in fifth place after day one of the competition with 88 points. Golden West leads with 171.5, followed by Diablo Valley (133), Sierra (104.5), Riverside (101) and Ventura. American River is in sixth place with 71 points.
The competition continues Friday and Saturday, May 1 and 2 at East Los Angeles College.