On Day II of the Orange-Empire Conference Swim Championships, Golden West again swam exceedingly well after a solid first day performance. The Rustlers remain in second place behind host Orange Coast who totaled 631 points after two days of competition. GWC has 506 points ahead of Riverside's 367 and Saddleback's 239.
The first event of the day was the 200 yard medley relay. The foursome of Joao Goncalves, Tommy Kelly, Zach Bishop and EJ Carrington produced a 1:35.27 time which was a five second improvement and garnered third place overall.
The first individual event was the grueling 400 yard individual medley. Tommy Kelly dropped eighteen seconds from his seasonal best to record a third place 4:06.45 result and reinforcing his position as one of California's top IM swimmers. Jacob Stoddard, John Limon and Cade Winston were all top eight swimmers which helped make this event the Rustlers' one of their top point producers.
The major time drops continued in the 100 yard butterfly as Zach Bishop, Neven Cercez and Antonio Doria all swam lights out in the prelims and secured spots and major points in the championship finals as they went 6-7-8.
One of the closest races of the day was the championship final of the 200 yard freestyle where the top seven prelim swims were bunched together within thirteen tenths of a second. The dynamic duo of Kyle Sary (1:43.36) and Joao Goncalves (1:43.38) emerged as the third and fourth place finishers with times certain to qualify for the State meet.
Thomas Woodley was the lone Rustler in the top eight in the 100 yard breaststroke. He dropped four seconds off his best in the prelims and another two to record a sterling 1:00.85 mark, good for fourth overall.
The 100 yard backstroke was another strong event for Golden West. Goncalves (53.66) and Bishop (53.94) swam tremendously in their second individual events of the day and picked up valuable third and fourth place points. Antonio Doria and Justin Hemara added sixth and seventh place points to add to the team's overall point total.
Finally, the longest relay of the meet concluded the day's action. That race was the 800 yard freestyle relay. As has been the common theme throughout the meet, the top three schools battled the entire race. After Nolan Chomin's best ever 1:44.72 leadoff, the Rustlers found themselves in third. However after a superbly executed leg (1:42.2) by Kelly, the Rustlers had moved into second, less than a second behind OCC at the halfway mark. Sary repeated his earlier success on his leg going 1:44.6 after putting GWC into the lead before sending Thomas Woodley into the water. Woodley's best ever split of 1:47.20 was awesome but not enough to get his team any better than third overall but the group's time will certainly rank in the top five in the state. The foursome dropped an incredible 25 seconds off of its entry time.
