INQUIRER Sports

The tankers of the University of San Carlos (USC) served a whitewash in the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (CESFI) swimming tournament after they easily captured the overall titles in both the juniors and seniors divisions at the close of the competition yesterday at the Cebu City Sports Complex swimming pools.

After grabbing 15 gold medals in the first day of the competition last Saturday, the USC swim team punctuated their stint with a splash as they added 11 more to finish with 26 gold medals on top of 17 silvers and 15 bronze medals.

They were easily far and beyond the reach of the University of Cebu (UC) squad, which finished in distant second with a haul of 11 golds, 15 silvers and 10 bronze medals.

RECORD BREAKER

UC settled for some consolation as they had the most outstanding swimmers of the tournament in Noel Caneda for the men's division and Paula Abigail Vega for the women's class. Each had five gold medals with the latter sizzling for five new records.

She set a new mark in the 800-meter freestyle with a time of 10:46.41 to shatter the old mark of Larissa Ang which was at 11:13.62. Vega also won the 100-m freestyle with a time of 1:08.40, which the broke the 1:11.25 mark set by Lejani Pacheco more than a decade ago in 1998. She finished her stellar performance off with a victory in the 100-m backstroke where she finished with a record time of 1:18.71, a new standard in the event.

Caneda, on the other hand, won the 200-m breaststroke with a time of 2:47.52 and the 400-m individual medley which he finished in 5:25.51.

USC though, was simply too much to handle as they got two gold medals each from Jesse Arriola, Seth Melendez and John Solon, and got a gold medal each from John Gano and Jed Fernandez. On the distaff side, Gwencent Canada finished with four gold medals while Claudia Candia, Katrina Rubi and Kruzette Solijon combined for seven gold medals to add to USC's gold rush.

Meanwhile, Loren Dale Echavez led the juniors' charge with five gold medals in the girls class. She won the 50-m freestyle in record time as she touched the wall in 28.84 seconds, breaking her own mark of 29.15 which she set last year. She was also victorious in the 100-m freestyle which she won in 1:02.11, also a new record.

Jebb Cane also got five gold medals in the boys division as USC finished with17 golds,five silvers and five bronze medals in the juniors competition.