Swimming & Diving Set to Open the 2026 Season
The Southwestern swimming and diving team starts its 2026 campaign on Friday, February 6 with the Waterman Pentathlon Invitational hosted by Palomar College.
Steve Wiggs begins his debut season at the helm. He is joined by Assistant Coach Stuart Sokil, and Diving Coach Dan Kovar. Their leadership, commitment, experience, and enthusiasm for aquatics make this an exciting time to be a part of Southwestern. Together, their vision is to build a championship caliber program in South San Diego.
Year one will continue to lay the foundation and create a high performance support environment where an increased volume of practice and training regimens improve endurance and speed, enhance strength, and cardiovascular fitness are a staple. Balancing the need for sleep, rest, and recovery while adding a progressively larger training load and dryland exercises or weightlifting will help increase power, improve form, and injury prevention.
The men's program confidently continues its upward climb having finished runner up in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference championships. The women's team will look to improve off of last year's sixth place finish at the conference meet.
In the pool, Southwestern returns 3C2A State Championship qualifiers and PCAC point-scorers Ray Artis (Freestyle/Butterfly), Jared Ritchie (Freestyle/Backstroke), and Mary Jackson (Freestyle/Individual Medley). The trio will be relied upon to anchor the program with high-point potential, versatile skill sets across multiple events and relay capabilities. Team Captains Ray Artis and Mary Jackson will lead by example in and out of the water.
A strong group of returners and contingent of first-years with high school championship experience will directly help determine meet outcomes and conference standings while adding immediate depth across various events. CIF San Diego Section Div II 50 Y Free Champion, Aslan Lofthus (Freestyle/Butterfly), CIF San Diego Section Div I 100 Y Breast Champion, Poppy Constantino (Breaststroke/Individual Medley/Freestyle), Alyssa Cozart (Breaststroke, Individual Medley, Freestyle), Aparri Grace Ramos (Breaststroke/Freestyle/Individual Medley), Ethan Ongtenco (Freestyle/Backstroke), George Grosselfinger (Freestyle/Butterfly/Breaststroke), Nicholas Cabrera (Breaststroke/Freestyle), and Dante Kim (Freestyle/Breaststroke/Individual Medley) are anticipated to post times that rank among podium finishers as well as round out the Jags scoring team.
On the boards, the Jaguar diving squad is led by newcomer Estaban Topete. Progression will be characterized by consistent, small improvements in practice and steady incremental growth for performance at regular season meets.
2026 Regular Season Schedule
Action will be plentiful throughout the 6 invitationals and meets contested over two months and several races in particular could be compelling. Whether a rematch of a close race last year, a growing rivalry between top competitors or for any number of other reasons, 2026 will likely carry a little extra excitement.
Waterman Pentathlon Invitational (Feb. 6) at Palomar College | 12:00 PM
Sprint Invitational (Feb. 20) at Golden West College | 9:00 AM
Collegiate Invite (Feb. 27) at Mt. San Antonio College | 1:30 PM
PCAC Meet #1 (March 18) at Crafton Hills College | 12:00 PM
PCAC Meet #2 (March 20 at Miramar College | 12:00 PM
PCAC Meet #3 (March 27) Southwestern College | 12:00 PM