Hartnell's Doughty Wins Gold and Silver at CCCAA Swimming State Championship

A year ago, Hartnell College freshman Kanyada Doughty was ready to step away from swimming after a decade of competitive success with Salinas High School and the Dolphins Aquatic Club.

This past weekend, she instead became a collegiate state champion and All-American – earning a gold medal in the 100-yard Butterfly, at 57.78, along with a silver medal in the eight-lap 200 Butterfly (2:14.59) and fifth place in the 200 Individual Medley (2:15.54), which is two, 25-yard laps of all four strokes: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle.

“I think last year I was just ready to close that chapter because it kind of felt OK after COVID and everything,” Doughty said Sunday night, home from the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) state meet on May 5-7 at East Los Angeles College. “But now that I know what this year has brought, I’m really glad I decided to continue.”  

By all accounts, she is the first swimmer in Hartnell history to medal at state. Along the way, she has surpassed decades-old school records in six events, knocking multiple seconds off her personal records in a sport where progress is often measured in 100ths of a second. She is the daughter of Hartnell English instructor Paul Doughty, who ran track and cross country for the college.

Head Coach Joel McKown reached out to Doughty last summer and convinced her to join the Panthers’ first full season of swim and dive competition since Hartnell canceled the sport in 2003. The pandemic abruptly interrupted the team’s initial return in 2020.

Although Doughty’s virtuosity put her in the spotlight, the entire team surpassed expectations, McKown said. The women finished seventh in the Coast Conference, and the men were seventh out of 12 teams. Swimmer David Parmley, a Monterey High School graduate, placed fifth in the 1650-yard race at the conference championship, April 21-23, and diver Erika Perez, also from Salinas High, was fourth overall.

Now McKown can look ahead to 2023, with fresh recruiting momentum and Doughty’s success as a sign that Hartnell can contend among the elite of California community college swimming. She intends to compete for Hartnell next year – probably in a different set of events – before deciding whether NCAA-level intensity can balance with her priority of completing a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Her eye is on San Diego State University.

McKown describes Doughty as a “Swiss Army knife” because her fundamentals are so strong across all her strokes. He also praises her work ethic and humility.

“It’s a beautiful flexibility that she has,” he said. “She can swap across races against the field more so than have her specialty. She could have been successful at plenty of events, and we kind of strategized throughout the season, ‘OK you have state-champion potential, and what are going to be your three events this year?’”

Doughty said she could feel her teammates’ support throughout the weekend in Los Angeles as they followed her preliminary and final races from back in Salinas.

“A lot of them were able to watch the live stream of the races, and they reached out to me, wishing me luck and congratulations and that stuff,” she said. “So it was kind of nice to feel like they were there, even though they weren’t there.”

Doughty also had the support of two assistant coaches who stepped up to help McKown when they learned competitive swimming and diving were coming back to Hartnell. One of them is Bob Enea, a longtime Salinas-area youth coach, who worked with the other assistant, Hartnell Hall of Famer Tom Campbell, when he was a young swimmer.

“For him and Tom to go down there and have the first state champion under their name was a super special moment for our staff,” McKown said.