Swim team kicks off its inaugural season
By William Courtney
Contributing Writer
For the first time in over 18 years, City College of San Francisco has a women’s swim team to call their own.
In their inaugural season, the newest Rams team is hoping this will be the beginning to a long, successful women’s program.
The squad is led by head coach Phong Pham, who is taking on his first collegiate coaching job after spending nearly 18 years at nearby Lincoln High School as a swim coach and instructor. Phong will be assisted by experienced swim coach Jaclyn Rosen.
Despite limited initial funding for the program, Pham was able schedule 10 meets, as well as the conference and state championships, culminating into a season that has the potential to stretch all the way into May.
Roselin Sretpisalsilp, who swam under Pham at Lincoln, said she and the rest of the team desire to start off on the right foot, but at the same time they want to have fun.
Specializing in backstroke and individual medley, Stretpisalsilp was dubbed by Pham as the team’s top swimmer.
“He’s a great coach and every year he makes his swimmers faster,” Sretpisalsilp said of Pham.
Although this is the team’s first season, Pham and his staff have high hopes.
“My goal is to make us competitive enough to be top four in the Coast Conference this year,” he said.
Other standout swimmers Pham cited include backstroke and freestyle swimmer Alyssa Stember, butterfly and distance swimmer Cathryn Gibson, and breaststroke specialist Heidi Tieu.
With a roster of 24 swimmers, the team is considered to be on the small side for college swimming. Fewer swimmers equates to more time spent one-on-one during practices, which Pham said gives him extra opportunities to make his swimmers faster, and more competitive.
Because of the smaller roster, Pham said he plans to spread out swimmers at different events, with the goal of scoring more team points per meet. In collegiate swimming, a team is awarded points based on where swimmers finish in their event.
Even with a tough building process ahead of it, the City College swim program has already gained some experience.
Following an exhibition relay event at West Valley College on Feb. 6, the Rams traveled to Las Positas on Feb. 19 to take part in the Hawks Invitational. Although it was a non-scoring meet, City College had swimmers finish in the top ten in three individual events. The team also finished in 5th place out of 16 in the 200 yard medley relay.
“We were going up against Santa Rosa and Sierra College, who were the number one and two teams in the state last season,” Pham said. “The fact the fact we were able to have more than one swimmer finish in the top ten is very good.”
The swim team will have their next meet at DeAnza College, February 26 at 2 p.m.