SMC's Swim Team Sinks in Competition

Ranked in the top five of their conference, both men and women of Santa Monica College's swim team battled it off last Friday against Cuesta College.

Sadly the end result was not in favor of SMC.

Although the game was scheduled for 2:30 p.m., unforeseen traffic held up Cuesta College during which some SMC teammates practiced for their events while the rest expressed their views about the game.

"I'm excited about the game," said SMC swimmer Emily Landberg.

"My goal is to learn from our opponent," said SMC diver Dmitriy Olshanskiy.

Moments before the game, Professor and Head Coach Steve Contarsy expressed his feelings about the team.

"We've hopefully improved on some strong relays. It's no secret Cuesta is a quality team," said Contarsy. "This meet will be difficult due to low team size and eligibility, and also a couple team members are injured."

The meet finally began at 3:30 p.m.

During the first heat, SMC claimed their territory when they placed first in the women's 200-meter medley relay with the time clocked at 2:04.38.

The second event which was the men's 400-meter medley relay brought Cuesta to the forefront. They extended their lead placing first in events three and four.

It wasn't until the 11th event that SMC showed face, taking first place in women's 100-meter butterfly at 1:02.43. Though SMC placed first in event 11, Cuesta secured first place in the 12th event but received a DQ in the men's 200-meter butterfly.

SMC took that DQ as a time to shine and placed first in the women's 100 freestyle with an outstanding time of 57.86.

Throughout the remainder of the meet, Cuesta and SMC played a give and take game; Cuesta taking 1st in the 14th event and SMC fighting for first place in 16th event at 1:08.98.

This went on up until the 19th event where Landberg achieved first place in the women's 100-meter breaststroke.

"Emily Landberg is the true find of the season. She is from Minnesota and came in last week hoping to secure a place on the intermediate swimming team, but when we saw her potential we put her on this team. She's a real neat girl," said Contarsy.

Cuesta held first place for the rest of the afternoon with SMC trailing, coming in fourth at 4:03.10 in the last event.

Even though SMC didn't see a victory, their hopes weren't deteriorated.

"I'm very happy with the team's performance, especially with the women; we have four girls who have the possibility of qualifying in their individual events at state level, but collectively should qualify for four out of five relays at state level," said Contarsy.

With the team's great morale and support there's no doubt their goal will be accomplished.