Women’s swim 3rd at OEC Finals
The Saddleback women's swim and dive team finished in third place at the Orange Empire Conference Swimming & Diving Finals on Saturday at Golden West College. It was the best finish at the conference finals since 2018.
Saddleback held off Golden West for third place on Saturday. The Bobcats had a number of solid performances along the way, with athletes advancing to the CCCAA State Championships in two weeks.
Saddleback's best performer was Kaitlyn Dawley, who finished in the top-5 in three separate events. Dawley was a 2nd place finisher in the 200 Fly when she touched the pad in 2:27.34. It shaved 0.80 seconds off of her prelim time and put her at No. 5 all-time in Saddleback history. Dawley wasn't finished, taking third place in the 400 Individual Medley (5:05.96) and 5th in the 1,650 Freestyle (19:42.07) to score a team-high 47 team points. Her time in the 400 IM was the No. 9 time in the history of the program.
Saddleback also had third place finishes from Ryleigh Spruth and Carson Mackenzie. Spruth was a third place finisher in the 100 Fly (1:10.32) while Mackenzie finished third in the 200 Fly (2:40.32). Spruth also picked up points for finishing seventh in the 100 Freestyle (58.52) and eighth in the 200 Freestyle (2:10.37) while Mackenzie went on to finish sixth in the 100 Fly (1:12.47) and ninth in the 500 Freestyle (5:58.58). All of the times for both athletes were easily the best times of the season.
Others with top-6 performers included Marin Hickson, Brielle Horner and Emma Jimenez. Hickson was fifth in the 400 Individual Medley (5:19.61) and sixth in the 1,650 Freestyle (20:20.32). Horner was fifth in the 100 Fly (1:12.25) while Jimenez was sixth in both the 100 Breaststroke (1:17.47) and 200 Breaststroke (2:55.88).
Saddleback finished with 502 points as a team, which was the highest point total since posting 512 at the OEC Finals in 2018.
Saddleback will compete again at the CCCAA State Finals at East Los Angeles College on May 4-6.