Women's Swim Season Ends With Hale Earning Pair Of State Top 8 Medals

Nickey Hale with her state medal in the 500 freestyle on Friday (photo by Richard Quinton).

Posted: May 08, 2023

Nickey Hale closed out her fine Pasadena City College women's swimming career with a pair of top 8 finishes at the 3C2A State Swimming and Diving Championships held May 4-6 at East Los Angeles College. The Lancers placed 24th overall out of the 35 schools participating with 41 scoring points.

Hale's most impressive swim was winning the morning heat of the 1,650-yard freestyle on Saturday with a time of 19:06.99, the fourth fastest mile swim in PCC's history. Hale earned the eighth place medal as the only swimmer from the B timed final to get an award.

On Friday, the sophomore scored the consolation title victory in the 400 individual medley (ninth place) with the program's third fastest time of 4:54.60. She swam a 4:58.20 the previous year in taking the fifth place medal showing how much faster state swimmers were in the event this year.

On Thursday, she opened things with her seventh place medal in the 500 freestyle, her prelims time proving to be fifth on the all-time PCC charts at 5:28.16. Story, click here

Arabella Carboni placed 14th (16 swimmers score points at state) in the 100 breaststroke as her prelims time of 1:10.68 moves her to fifth on the all-time Lancers list. The freshman then scored third in the consolation heat and 11th overall in the 200 breaststroke at 2:34.88, fourth fastest ever at PCC.

"To be able to win two championship heats is impressive and it defined Nickey's place among great PCC swimmers," said PCC head coach Terry Stoddard. "She earned three state medals and three conference titles in two seasons and this is a student-athlete that stuck with us during the tough times of COVID and having to practice off-campus since our PCC Aquatic Center was shut down before the 2022 season. That makes her performances all the more meaningful."

On Carboni, he said: "I felt Arabella had the talent to reach the state meet, and she did. She was able to put together season-best swims here and her prelim 100 breaststroke was impressive. She took a second off her South Coast Conference mark and then she had a really strong 200 breaststroke final. Overall, I'm happy with the results for both our top swimmers at state."

Stoddard, the program's aquatics director for 23 seasons, has coached 83 SCC individual titles and six individual state champions.

Arabella Carboni during her 200 breaststroke final at state meet (photo by Michael Watkins).