The swimming season is off to a hot start for the women’s team after the Gabayeron sister duo led the Falcons to first and second place finishes at the Palomar Pentathlon Feb. 8 and 9.

Freshman Raquel Gabayeron and sophomore Katherine Gabayeron helped make the first weekend of the swim season a successful one by placing first and second in the 100-yard individual medley.

Raquel took first place with a time of 1:05.18 while Katherine finished right behind her with a time of 1:05.36.

Katherine beat out 59 other swimmers in the pentathlon with an overall time of 3:05.94 and also took first in the 50-yard breaststroke and 50-yard freestyle while her sister Raquel took first in the 50-yard butterfly and second in the 50-yard back stroke.

In the 100-yard backstroke freshman Carla Harvey finished in fourth while sophomore Yuridia Vela finished fifth.

On the relay side, the Falcons took first place in the 200-yard medley relay with Vela, Katherine, Raquel and freshman Angela Covarribous while the trio of Raquel, Katherine and Harvey won the 600-yard Iron Woman relay.

Overall, the Falcons scored a total of 471 points, which was good for a third place overall finish.

“It was a great first meet for the team,” said head coach Sergio Macias.

“We were fortunate enough to have two talented swimmers who finished first and second in Katherine and Raquel out of 70 swimmers.”

Macias admits that the team had little rest in between events.

“The team swam tired since there was very little rest in between events but they swam hard. It’s early in the season so the team still needs to continue on working hard at practice in order to improve its conditioning,” he said.

Katherine feels that the first meet of the season was a good one.

“It was good. The Palomar (Invitational) is a good meet to swim in first because it isn’t too serious and everyone has fun.”

She admits that the team will improve as the season progresses.

“I don’t think there is anything specific we need to improve on but everyone will get better as the season approaches.”

The team will now head to East Los Angeles College for the South Coast Conference Pentathlon Feb. 15 where the team will be swimming the same events.

“Every week our goal is (to) improve our time from the previous week,” said Macias