Monterey Park, Calif. – With 533 points, Golden West College won its fourth state men’s team title in the last five years and 16th state crown in its history (the first in 1985). Defending state champ Sierra placed second 101 points behind the Rustlers while Riverside City was third with 379.
The Rustlers won three relays titles all with the Chadd Maurer anchoring and then Maurer picked up the team’s only individual title, a win in the 100 freestyle. Garrett Wasserman, Blake Williamson, Jacob Thompson, Aidan Lund, Miles Dunn, and Sonny Ford all were members contributing to the relay victories.
First-year GWC head coach Tracy Maurer, Chadd’s father, won state in his first year directing the program.
“Golden West’s program is one that is about tradition,” Maurer said. “The swimmers know what kind of success was set before them and they were determined here to get the job done. It’s special to see my son Chadd win that 100 and great for us to finish the last relay as the winning team. But it’s hard to be the coach’s son. We had a rule in that locker room from day 1 that there was nothing he could say there to his teammates because this was a team first.”
The East Los Angeles College Swim Stadium continues to produce state meet records with five at the ’17 event (all on the women’s side) to increase the record count to 52 in the seven years the Monterey Park campus hosted the state meet.
Event 40: Men’s 400 Freestyle Relay: 1. Golden West, 3:04.85
(Garrett Wasserman, Blake Williamson, Jacob Thompson, Chadd Maurer)
This event is always super-charged with pre-race music firing up the troops and it was fitting that the state team champion Rustlers looked to anchor Maurer to close down a relay crown just .61 of a second faster than silver-medalist Sierra (3:05.24) and third place Riverside (3:05.86). The first five teams in the relay were in the exact order of finish for the first five teams in the final men’s standings.
CONGRATULATIONS RUSTLERS!!!
