Rachelle Visser took second place in a field of 63 competitors on Saturday at the WSC Penthalon and Santa Barbara City College made a big splash in its first-ever women’s swimming competition at the Ventura Aquatic Center.
“It was a huge success,” said coach Chuckie Roth. “Rachelle was second overall and Janina Schulz swam awesome and placed 18th. That’s a huge improvement for her.
“We had more girls in the meet than any other team.”
The competition was comprised of five events – 100-yard butterfly, 100 backstroke, 100 breaststroke, 100 freestyle and 100 IM. They combined the times in each event to create the Pentathlon standings.
Hancock’s Leanna Bramble was the overall winner in 5:11.69. Visser, a freshman from Holland, posted a time of 5:19.67 and she was nearly 13 seconds ahead of the third-place swimmer, Elizabeth Hargis of Bakersfield.
Visser had the best time in the 100 back (1:02.88). She was just four-hundreths of a second behind Bramble in the 100 free in 55.65. Her time of 1:01.77 in the 100 fly was also second-best by a mere 0.34 seconds.
Schulz was 18th overall in 5:55.31. Emily Foster placed 20th and Sienna Van Alphen 21st for Santa Barbara.
“It was a great first showing,” Roth added. “We were very pleased with our performance. We have been training hard and swimming right through this meet. We had 10 personal-best times.”
Santa Barbara City College returns to action on March 1 in WSC No. 1, hosted by Ventura College.
