The Ventura College men's and women's swimming and diving teams opened the 2018 season at the Western State Conference John Joseph Pentathlon Friday at the Ventura Aquatic Center. Raleigh Mendez and David Peterson were the top performers for the Pirate men while Katie Heath and Mikala Cvijanovich had the best performances for the VC women.
All 10 women's teams and all seven men's teams from the conference participate din the non-scoring meet in which all athletes swam 100 yards in each of four strokes, butterfly, backstroke, breast stroke and freestyle, and in a 100-yard individual medley. Men's and women's divers also participated in the pentathlon.
Mendez placed first in the 1m springboard diving competition with a score of 159.45. Meanwhile, Peterson finished in the top-12 in four events as he was fourth in the butterfly with a mark of 56.78, sixth in the freestyle at 51.47, seventh in the backstroke with a mark of 1:01.55 and eighth in the individual medley with a time of 1:01.22. Brian Hicks was 12th in the 100-yard backstroke at 1:03.86.
Heath placed second in the women's 1m springboard competition with a score of 107.05. Cvijanovich was second in the breast stroke at 1:13.03 while Adrianna Bese came in 10th in the breast stroke event at 1:17.03.
Ventura returns to the pool Feb. 22-24 at the Mt. San Antonio Invitational in Walnut. They will return home for the final time this season on March 2 in the first WSC meet of the season at the Ventura Aquatic Center.