After two days of swimming at the South Coast Conference Championships, the Cerritos College men’s swimming team is holding steady in second place with 448 team points. They lead third place El Camino College by 101 points, while Chaffey College is in the lead with 566 team points. The final day of swimming is scheduled for Saturday at Pasadena City College.

    Over the last few weeks, sophomore Nikos Kostianis (Downey HS) was holding back on a heavy workload, and it appears to have paid off, as he won two individual races, while he also broke one his own school records. In the preliminaries of the 100-yard butterfly, Kostianis turned in the fifth fastest time of 55.78. But when the championship round came, he blazed through the water with a school record time of 50.27 for the conference championship. It also broke the record he set at last year’s state championship, when he turned in a time of 50.37, which put him in second place. Kostianis also won the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 51.93, which was just shy of his record time of 51.57 he set at the state championships last year. He was joined in the 100-yard butterfly by freshman Miguel Villalobos (Whittier HS), who placed seventh in 57.11, while freshman Kevin Nguyen (Cerritos HS) was a sixth place finisher in the 100-yard backstroke in a time of 58.20.

    The Falcons also received a third place finish in the 200-yard freestyle by sophomore Tristan Friend (Liberty Christian HS), who was clocked in 1:46.25, while freshman Louie Espinoza (Montebello HS) turned in a fourth place finish with a time of 1:00.56 in the 100-yard breaststroke.

    A pair of relay teams turned in fourth place finishes, as Kostianis, Espinoza, Friend and Villalobos swam the 200-yard medley relay in 1:39.20, with the 800-yard freestyle relay team of freshman Mark Zuniga (Downey HS), freshman Ryan Tamula (Cerritos HS), sophomore Billy Smith (Cypress HS) and Nguyen registering a time of 7:49.44.