New team making splash in its first season

By Bontã HillThe Guardsman

In its inaugural season, the City  College women’s swim team is gaining plenty of momentum toward the Coast  Conference Championships, as they easily outscored Cabrillo College  124-30 in their dual meet April 9 at the Wellness Center.

“During  spring break, we trained really hard in practice,” head coach Phong  Pham said. “We trained hard with our eyes on the conference  championships.”

Rams swimmers Alyssa Stember and Roselin  Sretpisalsilp easily won their respective races, with Stember claiming  first place in the 50-yard freestyle and 100-yard backstroke, and  Sretpisalsilp winning the 100-yard and 500-yard freestyle.

“The  50 freestyle is my favorite event because I’ve been improving the most  in that event,”  Stember said. “I’ve never been good at freestyle races  until now, so this is really exciting for me, especially since I haven’t  swam competitively in three years.”

Sretpisalsilp agreed that  she has also been improving throughout the season.
“I’ve been lucky  enough to do better in every meet, and I’ve been working hard to get my  times down,” she said. “Today was really impressive because I didn’t  really race in the events I usually do.”

Pham likes the way his  team has improved during its first season competing. He expects his team  to be highly competitive at the Coast Conference Championships set to  take place April 22-24 at West Valley College. His goal is for the team  to finish in the top three.

“We have improved tremendously over  the course of the season, and we don’t have a lot of swimmers with  competitive swimming experience,” Pham said. “It’s been a good learning  experience as we get ready for the conference championships.”