The Ventura College men's and women's swimming and diving teams finished strong on the final day of the CCCAA State Championships at East Los Angeles College Saturday. Buoyed by their seventh place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay, their highest finish of the meet, the Pirate men came in 11th place overall. Meanwhile, Maria Petraitis had her third individual finals appearance of the championships to help the VC women to a 15th place finish overall.
Thomas Bunker got the day started for the men with a 14th place finish in the 1650-yard freestyle event. Jack Burleigh came in 10th in the 100-yard freestyle and David Peterson was 11th in the 200-yard butterfly. In the final race of the day, the team of Peterson, Kaleb Rodarte, Burleigh and Jack Pickett brought home VC's best finish of the meet, a seventh place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay.
The Pirate men amassed 120 points over the three-day event, good for 11th place overall, finishing seven points out of the top-10. There were 37 participating teams in the men's championships with 31 teams recording points.
Brittany Oliver produced the VC women's best finish of the championships with a ninth place finish in the 1650-yard freestyle. Petraitis came in 14th in the 200-yard breast stroke, and the 400-yard freestyle relay team of Oliver, Petraitis, Paige Treloar-Ballard and Kaitlyn Peters posted their best time of the season in coming in 10th place, overall (Alternates Kelsey Golden and Alejendra Medina swam the qualifying race Saturday morning.).
THe VC women earned 74 points in the championships, good for 15th place overall. There were 42 teams with swimmers competing and 33 of them recorded points.