The wait is over!

For the first time in 37 years, Saddleback College captured a conference title in men's swimming when the team won the Orange Empire Conference championship on Friday night at Orange Coast College. 

The men's program hadn't won a conference title since 1984 when they captured the Mission Conference title under legendary coach Flip Darr.  The wait is over as the men ran away with the title on Friday night by a big margin.  Saddleback finished with 515 points, beating second place Golden West (428) by 87 points.  Orange Coast finished in third place (279) with Cypress College in fourth (256) and Fullerton College fifth (219).

With 28 swimmers for the finals, Saddleback used strength in numbers to capture the title.  The swim team had a number of tremendous efforts, led by Carson Williams and Roland Mantecon.  Williams was responsible for scoring 46 points on his own, finishing second in the 100-yard backstroke (56.57), third in the 50-yard freestyle (22.16) and sixth in the 100-yard freestyle (49.31).  Mantecon was right on his heels with 45 total points, finishing second in the 200-yard freestyle (1:46.67) and fifth in both the 100-yard freestyle (49.04) and 500-yard freestyle (5:06.76). 

Saddleback had nine swimmers with 20-or-more points.  Ivan Moilanen had 32 points on the strength of a third place finish in the 100-yard backstroke (58.22). Alec Abrahamian and Yughe Bista both finished with 30 points.  Nathan James had 29 points, bolstered by a third place finish in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:01.48). 

The team finished off the night with a second place finish in the 400-yard freestyle relay, shaving 10 seconds off of its qualifying time.  

Congrats to the Saddleback College men's swim team!