By FRED MCCARTHY / Staff Writer

Treading water (Diego Alvarez / Staff Photographer)

By FRED MCCARTHY / Staff Writer

The Riverside City College men’s swim and dive team defeated the defending state champion Orange Coast College, 111-106 on March 2.

Luke Obert won two events against the Pirates, the 200-yard individual medley and the 200-yard backstroke.

Obert became the first RCC Tigers’ swimmer this year to post a time of less than two minutes in the 200-yard medley with a time of 1:59.55.

The Tigers also got a win from both James Inglett in the 200-yard freestyle and Jeffrey Morelos in the 50-yard freestyle.

The women’s team did not fare  as well at the event losing 10 of 15 events to their conference rival, falling to the Pirates 176-99.

However, there were still bright spots to the event.

Andrea Antonissen and Kamaehu Alboro each won two events.

Antonissen won both the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard freestyle, and Alboro won the 50 and 100-yard backstroke events.

The only other event that was won was by Haley McVay. She won the 1-meter diving competition with a score of 162.60.

Both teams also competed in the Riverside/Chaffey Invitational on March 9 and March 10.

The women’s team won the Riverside/Chaffey Invitational with a score of 835.5.

Strong performances from Antonissen and Alboro led the way for the team to dominate the event.

Antonissen won the 50-yard, 100-yard, and 200-yard freestyle events, and was a part of three relay winning teams. Alboro won both the 50-yard and 100-yard backstroke events, and was a part of two of the teams that won the relay events.

The men’s swimming and diving coach Doug Finfrock was very excited with what he saw at the Riverside/Chaffey Invitational.

“I was very pleased with the way the team swam at the invitational over the weekend,” he said. “Right now they are extremely broken down and still most of them swam season best times.”

Coach Finfrock has been working the team really hard in practice in preparation for the rest of the season.

He has the team lifting weights and swimming about 10,000 yards per day to strengthen them for the rest of the year.

The men’s team finished third in the Riverside/Chaffey invitational with an overall score of 685.5, finishing behind Grossmont College and Palomar College respectively.

Obert competed in four individual events as well as four relays putting up solid performances and winning the 200-yard individual medley.

James Mauldin totaled 210.85 points in the 3-meter diving competition and 192.05 points in the 1-meter diving competition, taking first place in both.

Finfrock feels that all the preparation to this point is preparing the team for the rest of the season.

“We took this meet over the weekend as an opportunity to start to gauge where we will enter swimmers for our conference championships next month. I think that when this group tapers at the end of the season we are going to see some really great swims,” Finfrock said.

The Tigers had the past week off to rest up before a conference match against Saddleback College on March 23.

The Tigers’ swim and dive team will be competing in the conference dive championship in El Camino on April 13 and April 14; followed by the conference Championships on April 21.