Valley hosts Western State Conference swim championships

Over the three-day event at the Valley College Aquatics Center, the women took first place across five events and finished second overall. The men managed to take home fifth overall.

By: Alejandro Garcia, Sports Editor

August Kalaba and Colton Arnett gliding in the men's individual medley. (Angel Rangel for the Valley Star)

In the Western State Conference swim championships, Valley College’s women’s and men’s took second and fifth place respectively.

The Monarchs competed for three days against nine conference opponents: Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, Cuesta, Ventura, Santa Monica, Pierce, Hancock, Citrus and College of the Canyons, The teams competed for conference championship, 

With 19 events spread across the weekend, the women collected 596 points and the men added 368.5 points. 

“A lot of it is mental and pacing yourself and conserving your energy for day two and three,” said Valley women’s head coach Pete Loporchio. “As I tell them, you need to dig deep and pull out of yourselves an ounce of adrenaline in each session.” 

The women’s team managed to achieve first across five events including the 100- and 500-yard freestyle, the 200-meter fly, 400-meter individual medley and the 400-meter medley relay. 

Valley freshman swimmer Stella Kalaba placed first in women’s 100-meter freestyle finals with a :53.25 finish, beating her preliminary set time at :54.51.

Kalaba also topped first in the women’s 400-meter individual medley along with Valley teammate Alissa Wiggins, who stood right behind Kalaba at second.

Kalaba finished at 4:46.83 and Wiggins at 5:18.16.

Topping a 4:08.56 finish, the women’s team landed first in the 400-meter medley relay with a team consisting of Camilla Guillermo, Stella Kalaba, Abby Chatalyan and Ani Thomassian.

In the women’s 500-yard freestyle, Valley freshman Abby Chatalyan finished first with a mark of 5:20.98 and in the 200-meter fly she finished at 2:14.45, representing her best time of the season.   

Chatalyan is the current record holder for the Valley women’s 200-meter fly. 

Although the men did not match the success of the women swimmers, they finished in the top three across four events. 

Valley sophomore Mason Martsolf finished in third in the men’s 100-meter freestyle with a  time of 47.94, tying with Ventura College’s Jacob Otsuki.

Mason’ Marstolf’s brother, Chase, finished third and second in three events.  

He finished third in the 200-meter individual medley, clocking in at 1:58.33 while placing second in both the 200-meter fly and freestyle, 1:43.99 for the free and 2:02.64 for the fly. 

Next up for the Monarchs are state championships.

“We’re probably going to extend taper, which is the few weeks leading up to the events when you save energy up for meet day,” said Chatalyan. “We’re going to do some light yardage and some very light technique work.” 

As the results still flood in, a select few will travel to Orange Coast College for a three-day competition period on April 30 through May 3.  

Joshua Khan contributed to this story.