OCC’s Swimmers Waiting to Celebrate

The Orange Coast women’s swim team won the biggest community college swim meet in the nation Saturday, but don’t expect OCC Coach Jon Rathfelder or his athletes to get too excited.

The achievement bar for the Orange Coast swimming program is set too high for that.

The Pirates use one gauge--the state meet--to determine the success of a season. Before last season, OCC had won 12 of the last 13 state titles, including seven in a row.

But OCC’s state-title streak was stopped last year by Diablo Valley by a score of 417.5 to 377.

The same two teams were tied going into the final event Saturday at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, but the Pirates’ 400-medley relay victory in 4 minutes 9.66 seconds secured the meet title. Diablo Valley (4:12.85) was second.

Orange Coast finished with 581 points, Diablo Valley (575) was second and Golden West (357.5) third.

“We beat [Diablo Valley] at Cuesta last year too,” Rathfelder said. “so I can’t get too excited about it. The teams are incredibly close again this season. It’ll come down to whether one of us [is disqualified in] a relay as to who wins the state title.”

Unfortunately, Rathfelder knows about this firsthand. An Orange Coast relay team was disqualified on the first day of the state meet last year when a swimmer entered the pool too soon.

Sophomore Hilary Cox was among the standouts in the Cuesta meet for OCC.

She won the 200- and 500-yard freestyle races and swam a leg on each of OCC’s four winning relay teams.

Sandy Zubrin won the one- and three-meter diving events and Carrie Read also got a first in the 100-yard breaststroke.

In the men’s competition, Golden West was pushed hard but prevailed.

The Rustlers, who are the two-time defending state champions under Coach Bill Jewell, won 13 of 18 events and finished with 854 points. Diablo Valley (806.5) was second and Orange Coast (417) third.

Felix Sutanto set the Golden West record in the 200 backstroke in 1:52.17. His time was almost two seconds faster than the previous mark. He also won the 200- and 400-individual medley races. His twin brother, Albert, won the 200, 500 and 1,650 freestyle races.

Audy Oktavian took the 100 and 200 breaststroke events and the Rustlers won four of the five relay races.