RUSTLERS FINISH STRONG AT STATE MEET
May 2, 2026
Costa Mesa, Calif. - Golden West College, buoyed by potent point scorers in just four events, moved up to sixth place overall in the team standings, just one point behind Cuesta. The Rustlers finished with 279 points. Sierra College and Mt. Sac tied for first with 421, American River was third with 418, RCC had 376 and Cuesta had 280. The rest of the top ten included DeAnza (239), Orange Coast (233), San Mateo (211.5) and Diablo Valley (182).
Golden West swimmers scored their most points on the third day with 106. The finals session started with a bang as Ryan Novak and Avery Pellicano executed their race plans to near perfection to finish first and third overall in the 1650 freestyle. Coming in as the second and third seeds, both swimmers battled Mt. Sac's Cooper Golling from the outset in one of the closest contested miles in years at the State meet. The race started off with Las Positas swimmer Nathaneal Ridosko building a three second lead by the opening 500, out in 4:43.3. The other three were tightly bunched sharing the same stroke tempo. By the 750 mark, it was a four man race all flipturning at 7:12. By the 1000, the strong start had cost Ridosko who fell back behind the other three who hit 9:37. At the 1250, Novak had a slight lead over Pellicano and Golling and for the next two hundred yards, everyone held their slight advantage. With 100 yards to go, Avery had moved to flip just one tenth of a second behind Ryan and both were a second ahead of Cooper. Everyone switched to their highest gear and with a storming 54.7 on the final four laps, Novak took the race with a final time of 15:52.2. Golling (15:54.2) edged Pellicano (15:55.9) for second.
The next event for Golden West was the 100 free. Both Ryder Tonkovich and Wyatt Mitchell had qualified for the consolation final. Tonkovich, swimming in lane 8, had a strong initial 50, out in 22.1 and came back strong to move up to 3rd in the heat (46.25) Mitchell had a stronger second half and wound up sixth in the heat with a time of 46.51. Both efforts would be needed for the 400 free relay later in the meet.
The final individual event was the 200 Butterfly. Taylor Juarez and Jack Wright by virtue of their solid swims in the preliminaries swept the last two spots into the championship final. Both capped their Rustler swim days with times just a bit slower than their morning times but still were pleased with their efforts. Juarez went 1:57.21 and Wright was 1:57.75, good for seventh and eighth respectively.
The final event of the meet was the 400 free relay. Sixteen points separated the top three teams in the meet and Cuesta was just five points ahead of GWC for fifth in the overall standings before the race. The Rustlers were seeded third overall with a 3:05.1 time from the Orange-Empire Conference championships. The top seed was College of San Mateo at 3:04.8. As expected, Cuesta led off with Grant Huston putting his team up by almost two seconds over everyone else by virtue of his 43.9 opening leg. Rustler Tonkovich started off with a 46.4 split. However by the halfway mark, Sierra had taken a two second lead and the next four teams, San Mateo, American River, Golden West (Novak going 46.2) and Cuesta were all within one-tenth of a second of each other. Pellicano handled his business with a 46.3 leg to stay exactly even with the same four teams. The race was going to be for second as Sierra had a two second lead after three legs but Wyatt Mitchell finished strong for the Rustlers with a tremendous 44.8 split (one of only three swimmers on the top five teams to be under 45 seconds). Sierra won in 3:01.69 with American River (3:03.62) just edging out Golden West at 3:03.76 for the silver medal.
Head Coach Tracy Maurer was a bit sentimental at the conclusion of the meet. "We have worked all year on getting these athletes prepared for the end of the season. We had a great conference meet but that just set the table for the eight fellows that moved onto State. To do as well as we did, scoring more points this year than in the last four meets, winning the 800 free relay, there were just a lot of highlights to this meet. When we get to this point in the season, it's performance that counts. They all came through. Our coaching staff is very proud of these young men."