OCC Women's Swim Team Dominates Pasadena Invitational

PASADENA -- It was a dominating performance for the Orange Coast College women's swim team at the 2019 Pasadena Invitational as the Pirates won nine events to take first in the overall team standings with 854.50 points.

Diablo Valley was a distant second place with 521.50 points, followed by Santa Barbara City College (513.50), Sierra (462) and Allan Hancock (229).

The Pirates left their mark in the Pasadena Invitational record books. OCC's 200-yard freestyle relay team of Kennedy Hood, Kylie McCormick, Amber Freund and Meghan Kluck set a new pool record with a winning time of 1 minute, 41.22 seconds, the first of four relay victories throughout the three-day invitational. 

Sophomore Riley Crow produced several solid performances throughout the event, winning the 100 butterfly with a time of 59.53 as well as the 200 butterfly (2:13.99) and notched a second-place time of 1:01.84 in the 100 backstroke.

Crow also took part as the anchor leg in the 800 free relay (with Kluck, Cheyenne Morris, Natalie Drapp) and helped the Pirates to a winning time of 8:14.08.

Kluck competed in the most exciting race of the meet as she battled Pasadena City College's Carmen Ung right to the wall in the 100 breaststroke. The duo touched at exactly the same time and shared the top spot with a time of 1:05.58.

Hood helped lead a trio of Pirates to the top three spots in the 50 freestyle, placing first with a time of 24.66, slightly ahead of Kluck (24.73 and their OCC teammate Taylor Cossu (24.76).

It was a 1-3 finish for Coast in the 200 backstroke with Morris leading the way with a time of 2:12.27, followed by Natalie Drapp's solid mark of 2:16.65.

OCC winning relay performances fame from the Pirates' 200 medley relay (1:52.67) and Coast's 400 freestyle relay (3:43.58).

Other top-five times were turned in by Morris in the 200 individual medley (2nd, 2:14.33), Amber Theders in the 200 freestyle (second, 2:01.14), 1,650 freestyle (5th, 19:03.15) and 400 individual medley (2nd, 4:43.56), Brooke Derache in 1-meter diving (2nd, 142.65 points) and 3-meter diving (2nd, 145.65), Crow in the 200 IM (4th, 2:16.71), McCormick in the 200 IM (5th, 2:17.23), Kluck in the 200 breaststroke (3rd, 2:25.46), Jenna Morley in the 200 breaststroke (4th, 2:31.03), Hood in the 100 freestyle (3rd, 54.2), Jacqueline Chang in the butterfly (4th, 2:21.39), and a pair of Pirate foursomes in the 400 medley relay (2nd, 4:11.91 and 3rd, 4:14.14).

OCC's divers will head to El Camino College on Friday and Saturday for the Southern California Regionals. For the Coast swimmers, they will return to action April 18-20 at the Orange Empire Conference Championships, hosted by Saddleback College, beginning at 9:30 a.m.