Posted: May 04, 2026

Pirate women earn fifth overall at State Meet

COSTA MESA -- There was plenty of hardware to go around for the Orange Coast College women's swim team as the Pirates earned a fifth-place team finish at the 3C2A Men's and Women's Swim/Dive State Championships this past weekend at the OCC Aquatics Pavilion.

Thanks to several top-3 performances, the Pirates finished with a team score of 281 points, trailing only champion Long Beach City (500.5), Santa Barbara (310), Mt. San Antonio (304) and Sierra (299). Las Positas (253), Diablo Valley (249), Miramar (219), De Anza (207.5) and American River (202) completed the top-10 team scores for the three-day State Meet.

Coast earned a pair of individual state championships. On Thursday, Leyna Nguyen led the mad dash up and back to take the gold medal in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.88, with runner-up Evalinne Vecchio of Diablo Valley just .03 off of Nguyen's wall touch. LBCC's Carolyn Kao missed the gold by just .1 and took home the bronze.

Nguyen's gold was just one of several medals she claimed over the weekend, including two bronze medals and a silver in three of OCC's relay events. The silver came on Day 2 when she joined Emma Steffens, Analiese Duncan and Ayla Puente, anchoring OCC's runner-up time of 1:47.98 in the 200 medley relay. That same foursome earned a bronze in the 400 medley relay with a time of 3:59.87. Nguyen also led off in the 200 freestyle relay earning a bronze with Duncan, Steffens and Ariah Martinez with a time of 1:37.75.

Duncan had the full range of emotions throughout this State Meet, in addition to her relay success, she earned two silver medals by the narrowest of margins before earning her gold medal in the 200 breaststroke, rallying with a final 50-yard sprint to the wall with a time of 2:20.38, just ahead of Las Positas' Samantha Fehr (2:20.49). Her silver medals were earned in the 200 individual medley (2:06.4) and 100 breaststroke (1:04.17).

Here are the OCC results from the 2026 3C2A Men's and Women's Swim/Dive State Championships ...

DAY 1

200 Freestyle Relay (Leyna Nguyen, Analiese Duncan, Ariah Martinez, Emma Steffens), BRONZE MEDAL, 3rd, 1:37.75

500 Freestyle -- Emma Steffens, 8th, 5:22.26

200 Individual Medley -- SILVER MEDAL -- Analiese Duncan, 2nd, 2:06.40

50 Freestyle -- STATE CHAMPION -- Leyna Nguyen, 1st, 23.88

400 Medley Relay (Emma Steffens, Analiese Duncan, Ayla Puente, Leyna Nguyen), BRONZE MEDAL, 3rd, 3:59.87

DAY 2

200 Medley Relay (Emma Steffens, Analiese Duncan, Ayla Puente, Leyna Nguyen), SILVER MEDAL, 2nd, 1:47.98

100 Butterfly -- Leyna Nguyen, 5th, 59.09; Ayla Puente, 12th, 1:01.52

100 Breaststroke -- SILVER MEDAL -- Analiese Duncan, 2nd, 1:04.17

100 Backstroke -- Emma Steffens, 5th, 1:00.12