Clovis Crush Women's Swim Team win the BVC

Fairfield, CA. Solano College played host to the 2019 Bay Valley Conference Swimming Championships, over April 18-20, 2019. This meet features the 4 schools from the Central Valley Conference (Clovis Community College, Fresno City College, Merced College, and College of the Sequoias) as well as the schools from the Bay Valley Conference (Laney College, College of Marin, Solano College, and Shasta College). Clovis Community College women's team held off College of the Sequoias in a very tight race to win their 2nd conference title in the past 3 years.

The women's team race was one of story-books. During the sixth and final session of the meet, there were lead changes after each of the five women's events in which each of the three schools in contention, (Clovis, COS, and Merced) led for part of the session. Coming into the final event, the 400 freestyle relay, Clovis held a 7 point lead over COS. A COS win of any kind would have scored 64 points and a 2nd placed finish by Clovis would have yielded 56 points, thus giving COS the championship title by only 1 point. However, the Lady Crush relay held their nerve and the team of Chloe Telian, Helen Harris, Jade Standing, and Dani Denton held off a very strong challenge from the COS team to touch first and take the title!

The Lady Crush swimmers topped the podium on the majority of the events on the meet, winning 13 of the 21 events in the meet! Sophomores led the charge, as Kristina Copeland and Hannah Carbajal each won three individual BVC titles. Copeland earned first place in the 200 free, 500 free, and 1650 free, while Carbajal touched first in the 50 butterfly, 200 individual medley, and 400 individual medley. Carbajal also finished 2nd in the 200y breaststroke, which brought her accumulation of points to a tie for the highest point scorer in the meet, earning her a share of the title of Bay Valley Conference Women's Swimmer of the Year along with Helene Takamura of Laney College.

Other event winners include a trio of freshmen. Dani Denton placed first in the 50 and 100 free events. Sammie Rockey was the champion of the 100 and 200 breaststroke events. Chloe Telian bested the field in the 200 butterfly. The Crush took the gold in two relay events, as well, winning the 400 freestyle relay (as explained above), as well as putting together a dominating performance in the 800 freestyle relay with the team of Copeland, Rockey, Harris, and Sara Barcelos keeping a, now, four year streak of winning this event.

As one would imagine, the great success yielded some school records. Dani Denton's time in the 50 freestyle overtook the record set earlier this year by Ari Hernandez, who missed out on competing in the Conference to lead a mission trip in Mexico, during this week's Spring Break, but was able to compete in diving events at the NorCal regional championships, last week. Sammie Rockey has now achieved the honor of being the queen of all breaststroke records, replacing the records in the 50, 100, and 200 breaststroke events, at the BVC Championships.

The women's team fielded thirteen student-athletes who all contributed scoring efforts, and it is important to add that without the scoring efforts of every team member, the Crush would not have taken the conference title. Next up for the Lady Crush is the CCCAA State Championships in Cupertino, hosted by DeAnza College, on May 2-4. At the time of post, Copeland and Rockey are qualified for individual swimming events, while Jade Standing qualified in 1m and 3m diving events, last week, at the NorCal Diving regionals, while there will be many contributors to State relay-only efforts, including Katie Amendt, Barcelos, Carbajal, Denton, Arianna Hernandez, and Harris.