Pirates in the hunt after Day 1 of Swim State Finals

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College men's and women's swim teams performed very well on Day 1 of the 3C2A Swimming and Diving State Championships on Thursday at the OCC Aquatics Pavilion as both Pirate squads hope top-5 team spots with two days left to go.

On the men's side, Coast picked up a pair of state titles, including a state record performance by the men's 200-yard freestyle relay foursome of Gideon Stemmons, Ryan Xu, Dylan Bertino and Mason Parker. Leading all the way the Pirates touched the wall first with a record-setting time of 1:21.26, which topped the previous-best mark of 1:21.52, set by Diablo Valley back in 2016. With that record, that gives the Pirates possession of the state record in all five relay races the 3C2A runs in every state meet.

Stemmons wasn't done picking up hardware on Day 1. The sprinter specialist zipped through his home pool and just barely out-touched Sierra College's Christopher Nihart at the wall for the state title in the 50 freestyle with a winning time of 20.41, just ahead of Nihart's 20.61 and Cuesta College's Rylan Stevenson's 20.77.

On the women's side, Coast opened Day 1 of the State Meet by winning gold in the 200 free relay. The Coast quartet of Paige Woodside, Kiley Kawai, Gia Cadiz and Rylie Fox battled Santa Rosa neck and neck for all four legs of the relay. Finally, with the Pirates just behind the Bear Cubs with one leg to go, Fox turned on the jets and ripped off a 23.97 split to give Coast a win over SRJC by .69 seconds.

Other top-five final performances for the Pirates included the men's 400 medley relay of Stemmons, Christian Perez, Ryan Xo and Parker (2nd, 3:22.06), Brandon Samaniego in the 500 freestyle (5th, 4:36.82) and Xu in the 50 freestyle (5th, 20.81).

Day 2 of the 3C2A Swimming and Diving State Meet continues on Friday at OCC, with the finals set for 4:30 p.m. Day 3 finals will take place on Saturday at 4 p.m.