The Ventura College men's and women's swimming teams were lifted by championship performances Saturday at the Western State Conference championships at Santa Clarita Swim Center.

The men finished with a record setting 1,034 points, and easily distanced itself from the next closest finisher in Cuesta, which had 423 points to win their eighth straight conference championship.

In opening up the widest margin of victory in WSC history, Ventura surpassed 1,000 points for the first time.

"It's a dominating year," said Ventura coach Larry Baratte. "We had 26 guys that we took to the meet, I had to designate eight of them non-scorers... Of those eight, all of them would have scored points if they were at a different school."

The mile freestyle was the lone swimming event in the three-day, 18-event meet that the Pirates did not win.

The women earned the championship with 665.5 points, followed by Cuesta with 524 and Bakersfield with 522.

"We only won one really," said Baratte. "It wasn't neccesary because of our talent. It was the depth."

Steven Edgar earned swimmer of the year honors for the men's side and Shyla Motley did likewise for the women.

Motley won the 1,650-yard freestyle and, three events later, broke a 20-year-old record in the 100-meter breaststroke with a first place finish of 1:07.20.

"Big time," said Baratte. "She's pretty good."

For the men, Edgar won the 200 butterfly, Collin Baratte won the 200 backstroke, Daniel Colvin defended his title in the 100 freestyle, Rafael Ingannamonte won 200 breast stroke.