Cuesta Men's and Women's Aquatics teams shall host the 46th Cuesta Swim & Dive Invitational this Friday and Saturday. The meet, once the largest in the nation, is the premier community college meet in the State with the best teams from both the Northern and Southern Regionals competing for the title. The meet shall run all day on Friday and Saturday and include a mini sprint meet on Thursday (1:30) for the teams that arrive early.
Last week, the Aqua-Cats traveled to Walnut for the Mt San Antonio Invitational. The men claimed the team Bronze in the 19-school field, while the women took 8th out of 21 teams.
The men were led by Freshman Grant Huston and returning All American Conner Rocha. Huston is now regarded as a State Title Contender, after winning four events over the weekend. Huston paced the field in the 100 (:57.73) and 200 (2:03.71) breaststrokes, as well as the 200 (1:40.45) and 1,650 (16:04.68) freestyles. Rocha took the Gold in the 50-butterfly (:23.11) and claimed a Silver in the 50-freestyle, as well as a Bronze in the 200-butterfly. The duo also helped the Cougars to a Silver in both the 4x50 and 4x100 freestyle relays, as well as Bronzes for both the 4x100 medley and 4x200 freestyle relays.
On the women's side, Sophomore Madison Corrigan and Freshman Ryder Gangemi each posted a team-high 4th place finish to lead the team. Corrigan took 4th in the 50-breastsroke (:35.38), while Gangemi cleared the 50-butterfly (:31.49) to also take 4th place. Gangemi's finish was just one-hundredth of a second faster than her teammate Marcella Fabre, who took 5th (:31.50) in the event. Freshman Annika Pauschek was the only member of the squad to reach "Big" finals in two events. She finished 8th in the 100-backstroke (1:06.51) and 6th in the 1,650-freestyle (20:06.12). Pauschek, Gangemi and Corrigan also joined Freshman Kailey Ardouin to take 5th in the 4x200 Freestyle Relay (8:53.46). Ardouin also made big finals (Top 8) as an individual, with 8th in the 200-breaststroke (2:47.85)
Forty-six years ago, Cuesta Aquatics' Founding Coach Terry Bowen enlisted Guy Wells and Greg Hind as the primary sponsors of his small five-school swimming and diving meet. The meet has changed sponsors over the past four-plus decades with Wells and Company, Straight Down, Finis and Arena all taking the roll, while the event grew in popularity and prestige. At its height the invitational boasted over 35 colleges, 68 teams and over 1,000 entries and was the largest collegiate swim invitational in the nation.
