Monterey Park, Calif.- For the second year in a row, Arizona Christian claimed sixth place at the PCSC Championships.  For the first time in program history, the Firestorm had an individual PCSC champion as the newest Firestorm Ikuto Yoshida won gold in the 100 breast.

Yoshida and Edgar Betancourt qualified for NAIA nationals in two events each.  They combined to set seven school records.

The men finished second versus the other NAIA schools in the field.

Event Details

• Teams Scores: Biola- 597.5, UC Santa Cruz- 551.5, Fresno Pacific- 439.50, Concordia- Irvine- 334, The Master's- 246, Arizona Christian- 89.5, OUAZ- 56, Soka-24
• Location: East Los Angeles College, Monterey Park, CA

Top 16 Finishes/ Top 8 Relays/ NAIA Cuts/ Team Records

• 200 Medley Relay- Kadin van der Lingen, Yoshida, Noah Froese, CJ Trettel- 1:35.86 (6th)
• 800 Free Relay- Betancourt, Trettel, Josh Brady, Froese- 7:12.51 (6th)
• 200 Free Relay- Yoshida, van der Lingen, Trettel, Froese - 1:27.32 (6th)
• 500 Free- Betancourt- 4:38.65 (4th/ ACU record/ NAIA cut/ 13th fastest NAIA time of season)
• 50 Free- Yoshida- 21.13 (6th/ ACU record)
• 200 Free- Froese- 1:45.09 (15th)
• 100 Breast- Yoshida- 55.74 (1st/ ACU record/ NAIA cut/ 12th fastest NAIA time of season)
• 100 Back- van der Lingen- 53.42 (14th)
• 400 Medley Relay- van der Lingen, Yoshida, Betancourt, Trettel- 3:31.32 (6th)
• 1650 Free- Betancourt- 16:28.13 (6th/ ACU record/ NAIA cut/ 12th fastest NAIA time of season)
• 1000 Free- Betancourt- 10:02.73 split (ACU record/ set during 1650 swim)
• 100 Free- Froese- 47.50 (16th)
• 200 Breast- Yoshida- 2:05.70 (4th/ ACU record/ NAIA cut/ 16th fastest NAIA time of the season)
• 200 Fly- Betancourt- 1:57.52 (12th/ ACU record)
• 400 Free Relay- Froese, Betancourt, Yoshida, van der Lingen- 3:12.74 (5th)

Coach Hering's Perspective
"Coach Rob, Pastor Travis and I were very blessed to see our Firestorm swimmers rise to a new level of competition and especially character over the past week at the PCSC conference meet in Los Angeles.
Seven new school records and our first men's individual conference victory.  We saw heroic performances in prelims and finals  by every swimmer.  We saw amazing resilience over the last four days of competition."

"I think Winston Churchill said it best… Success is never final, failure is never fatal, it's courage that counts!"

"We are looking at building on this year and getting even more competitive and raising a culture of godly leaders that will change the world around them! "

Next On The Schedule
For Yoshida and Betancourt, the NAIA National Championships will be held March 6-9 at the Columbus Aquatic Center in Columbus, GA.