M & W SWIMMING: For the past decade, the Pirate men's swimming team had been the hunted. Winners of 10 straight conference titles form 2003-2012, VC was caught by Cuesta College a year ago as the Cougars claimed first place. This year, Ventura was projected to finish third in the Western State Conference championships. With the serious illness that had affected head coach Larry Baratte since August, third would have been good, but the Pirates had other things in mind. Behind Chris Sands' first place finish in the 200-yard butterfly, and the 400-yard relay team of Mitchell Ongstad, Kyle Berg, Alec Kruse and Shea O'Shea's careful third place finish in the meet's final race, the Pirates claimed the WSC crown for their head coach, the team's 11th title in 12 years.
Swimming is a numbers game, and the Pirates excelled in numbers throughout the three-day event at Los Angeles Valley College. Saturday was no exception. Nick Miranda placed second in the 1650-yard freestyle and Berg (4th) and Renan Mendes (5th) scored in the 200-yard backstroke. Nick Vallejo placed second in the 100-yard freestyle, leading four Pirates in the top seven in that event with Ongstad (3rd), O'Shea (4th) and Kruse (7th) following. Joe Yamamoto and Rodrigo Siracusa placed fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 200-yard breast stroke and Sands claimed the 200-yard butterfly. With the Pirates leading by 38 points entering the final event, all they need to do was finish without disqualification, leading to the careful but successful final swim.
Ventura finished the championships with 615 points, followed by Cuesta (585), Bakersfield (551) and Santa Monica (409).
Meanwhile, Abbey Brooks followed up her win in the 50-yard backstroke on Friday with a second place finish in the 100-yard backstroke. Also, the 400-yard freestyle relay team of Brooks, Jessica Peace, Kristin Shaffer and Sara Koler scored points with a seventh place finish. The Pirate women, short on numbers, came in seventh in the 10-team meet.
Ventura will now prep for the season-ending state championships held May 1-3 at East Los Angeles College.