The Ventura College men's and women's swimming and diving teams opened the 2019 season Friday on a picture perfect morning at the Ventura Aquatic Center. Cooper Fuchs led the VC men with four top-10 finishes while Marcel Hurtubise and Tobias Hynes also produced a pair of top-10 performances. For the women, Alli Hopkins and Gracelyn De La Cruz both had two top-10 finishes.
The non-scoring meet included all teams from the Western State Conference meet and featured all swimmers competing in 100-yard races in all four strokes plus a 100-yard individual medley.
Fuchs was second overall in the 100-yard IM (58.17), third in the 100-yard backstroke (56.32), fourth in the 100-yard freestyle (50.14) and fifth in the 100-yard breast stroke (1:06.52). Hurtubise came in sixth in the 100-yard butterfly (58.17) and 10th in the 100-yard IM (1:01.65), while Hynes was sixth in the 100-yard breast (1:06.81) and sixth in the 100-yard free (50:42). Garrett Gallagher came in 15th overall in the 100-yard free (52.32).
Hopkins was sixth in the 100-yard fly (1:05.93) and sixth in the 100-yard free (58.42), and De La Cruz came in eighth in both the 100-yard back (1:09.12) and 100-yard free (59.46). Adrianna Bese had VC's best finish for the women with her fourth-place performance in the 100-yard breast stroke (1:15.61). Meanwhile, Ary Martinez was 12th in the 100-yard IM (1:11.86) and Caitlin Burditt came in 13th in the 100-yard free (1:00.89).
Next up, the Pirate divers will travel to the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational on Thursday Feb. 21 before the swimmers head to Walnut on Saturday Feb. 23. VC hosts Cuesta, Bakersfield, Hancock and Canyons on Friday March 1 in the first WSC scoring competition of the year.