Golden West Leads After First Day at State Swim Meet

Golden West’s Yan Gendlin and Scott Wester won individual events as Golden West opened a big lead after the first of three days of the state men’s and women’s swim championships Thursday at Long Beach State.

Gendlin won the 500 freestyle in 4 minutes 33.76 seconds.

Teammate David Payot was second in 4:40.24.

Gendlin won 1,650 in the state meet for Orange Coast last year.

Wester won the 50 freestyle in 20.65. The state record is 20.61.

Golden West also won the 200 freestyle relay and the 400 medley relay. The Rustlers have 240 points. Diablo Valley (123) is second and Grossmont (118) is third.

Diablo Valley is ahead in the women’s meet with 114 points. El Camino (86) is second, Saddleback (720) is third and Orange Coast (69) fourth.

Hilary Cox of OCC was second in the 500 freestyle. Orange Coast, which has won seven consecutive state titles and 11 of 12, lost up to 40 points when their 400 medley relay team was disqualified during prelims Thursday.

In Orange Empire Conference baseball:

Orange Coast 5, Saddleback 4 (11)--Deric Yanagisawa singled with two outs in the 11th inning to drive in Travis Clutter with the winning run for host OCC (24-16, 8-15).

The loss dropped Saddleback (25-13, 14-9) into a second-place tie with Rancho Santiago. Saddleback ends the regular season at Cypress at noon Saturday.

Rancho Santiago 5, Golden West 4--Brandon Hendrikx allowed five hits and four runs, two earned, in 7 1/3 innings to improve to 8-0 for visiting Rancho Santiago (30-11, 14-9).

Mike Brambilla hit a two-run homer, his 10th, also for Rancho Santiago, which hosts Riverside at noon Saturday.

Cypress 10, Fullerton 4--Jason Hoffman hit a three-run homer for host Cypress (33-10, 18-5), which won its second conference titles in three seasons.

It was the final game for Fullerton, which started 5-0 in conference but lost 15 of the next 19. Fullerton finished 22-17, 9-15.

In the Southern California dual team tennis championships:

College of the Desert 5, Saddleback 1--Saddleback’s Kevin Springer upset the state’s top-ranked singles player, Rudolfo Rodriguez, 0-6, 6-3, 6-4, but College of the Desert swept the remaining singles matches to clinch the men’s championship. Saddleback finished the season at 17-3.