Panchak leads Pirates to second place at Pasadena Invitational
PASADENA -- Led by some record-setting times by standout Jonathan Panchak, the Orange Coast College swim team finished in second place overall at the prestigious 2016 Pasadena Invitational, held at Pasadena City College.
Coast finished with 571 points and trailed only Golden West in the 20-team meet. Mt. San Antonio finished third with 455 points.
Panchak set pool/meet records in three events for the Pirates. In the 200-yard individual medley, Panchak edged out the nine-year-old mark of 1:52.68 and touched the wall first with time of 1:52.34.
In the 100 breaststroke, Panchak destroyed the field and set the meet record with a time of 56.53 seconds, over four seconds ahead of runner-up Caleb Monzon's time of 1:00.94.
Finally, in the 200 breaststroke, Panchak continued to dominate the competition and set a new meet record with a time of 2:03.48, over 14 seconds better than Mt. SAC's Bryan Calderon, who took second with a time of 2:17.81.
Panchak also helped guide the Pirates to a victory in the 400 medley relay, joining teammates Tyler Connors, Diego Pabalan and Alex Furlong atop the victory platform with a time of 3:26.58, five seconds better than GWC's runner-up time of 3:31.53.
Connors, Panchak, Furlong and Sooud Altayyar took part in the 400 freestyle relay and led the Pirates to a second-place time of 3:06.91. That same foursome also competed in the 800 free relay, where the Pirates also took runner-up with a time of 7:01.61.
In the 200 relay events, Altayyar, Connors, Furlong and Erik Lindsey finished third in the 200 free (1:26.61) and third in the 200 medley relay (1:35.33).
Other second-place times were turned in by Cory Nguyen in the 200 backstroke (1:57.47), Altayyar in the 100 backstroke (46.7) and Pabalan in the 200 butterfly (1:54.14) and 500 freestyle (4:46.07).
Kyle Bogel finished third in the 400 IM with a time of 4:24.99, while Pabalan took third in the 100 backstroke (52.55).
The Pirates will return to the water on Thursday, April 21 for the Orange Empire Conference Championships, which will be held at Fullerton College, beginning at 9:30 a.m.
