The Lakers Men Swim team competed at NJCAA Championships at Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida where they were able to take 10th place with just two guys beating out one team.
The national meet is a four day long meet with two session each day. Prelims in the morning and finals at night, which makes for a lot of swimming!
The Lakers National men's swim team was composed of two men: Hylton Collinson and Gabriel Carmona
The first day: Collinson and Carmona swam the 200 IM with Collinson just getting out-touched for first place and had to settle for a second place finish and Carmona just missed it back to finals taking 17th place.
The second day: The 400 IM saw Collinson repeat as the NJCAA Champion in the event beating all his competitors by over six seconds. Carmona was able to take 12th in the 100 yard butterfly.
The third day: Collinson was out for redemption in the 100 breaststroke with a fourth place finish at last year's nationals he was able to pull out a first place finish just out touching his competition. Carmona was able to win the B final heat and take 9th place.
The last day: Collinson repeated as the NJCAA Champion in the 200 breaststroke, while teammate Carmona was able to pull out a 10th place finish.
The Men were able to rack up 4 All-American performances, and 3 Honorable Mention All-American Performances at the meet.
"Nationals is always an exciting meet but this Nationals was more competitive and challenging both physically and mentally on all the athletes. The competition pool was outdoors and it just so happened that a cold front moved through when the meet was going on causing it to also rain two of the four days. This made it difficult for the athletes to stay warm but even with the bad weather the men were able to do amazing things." said Coach Anderson.