Hale The Conquering Hero: PCC Women's Swimmer Wins 2 South Coast Titles

Nickey Hale is another in a long line of Pasadena City College women's swimmers who excelled at the South Coast Conference Championships. In the conference meet held at the indoor East Los Angeles College Swim Stadium April 21-23, Hale scored first-place medals in winning the 500-yard freestyle and versatile 400 individual medley events.

The freshman tried for a third gold medal on Saturday, but she settled for third with a personal best 19:30.46 time in the 1,650 freestyle. The mark is currently 12th fastest in the state this year. 

On Friday, Hale swam a 5:27.98 to win the 500 freestyle as she dropped nearly 13 seconds from her morning Prelims swim. It was the third fastest mark in PCC history and the state's current seventh fastest time in the event.

On Saturday, Hale swam to victory in the 400 IM in 4:59.24, holding off Mt. San Antonio's Laila Topinio by just 0.57 of a second in the closest women's race of the meet. Her time is 10th fastest in the state. Hale will participate at the CCCAA State Championships May 5-7 also to be held at ELAC.

PCC head coach Terry Stoddard saw an impressive program streak end with the 2022 championships as it marked the first time since 2012 that the Lancers did not garner SCC Swimmer of the Year honors. From 2013-2019, PCC went seven straight seasons earning the achievement, which generally goes to a swimmer who wins three individual events. Carmen Ung performed the triple in 2019 (2020 was a shortened season where no SCC meet was held and 2021 the season was cancelled all due to the COVID-19 pandemic). 

This year, Long Beach City College, the SCC team champion, had Co-Swimmers of the Year in 3-event winners Atiya Yuwana and Kaya Barrett. Hale was one of just four swimmers to win two or more events. While one streak ended, another is still going at eight straight SCC Championships where a PCC swimmer won at least two events. In fact, PCC has had 13 different swimmers achieve double-event wins since 2003 with five of them performing the feat twice. 

PCC placed seventh (out of eight teams) in the team scoring with 147 points.

Lilian Tahmasian scored a 7th place medal in the 200 freestyle (2:18.82) while teammate Lilah Caputi (2:22.79), tallied the eighth medal. Tahmasian won the consolation heat (ninth) in the 100 breaststroke (1:23.76) and was 10th in the 500 freestyle (6:01.31).

Berte Montes placed seventh in the 100 freestyle (1:09.60) and 13th in the 50 freestyle (31.01). Caputi was 11th in the 100 backstroke in 1:17.48. Gayane Karapetyan placed 24th in the 50 (42.46).

The Lancers, who practiced at Pasadena Poly, learned that it will not be able to compete in the 2023 season at PCC and will again be swimming off-campus all events. PCC is the scheduled host for the 2023 SCC Championships which will be held at ELAC.