The UCSD swimming and diving teams triumphed over UC Santa Cruz at Canyonview Pool on Jan. 25, with victories of 165-122 for the UCSD men and 171-122 for the UCSD women.
It was an exciting day for the Triton men, who had not yet won a dual meet this season. They consistently out-swam UCSC’s men, sweeping first, second and third places three times and winning a total of eight out of 14 events.
Brett Going was the only double winner for UCSD, swimming a 1:01.62 in the 100-yard breaststroke and 2:14.07 in the 200-yard breaststroke. Other individual winners were Cole Paffett in the 1,650 freestyle (17:28.14), Mark Tate in the 50 freestyle (22.19), Danny Behrens in the 100 freestyle (48.91) and Tosh Yamamoto in the 200 backstroke (2:02.87).
Also contributing to the overall win were Michael Baier, who got a first place finish in the 200 individual medley (1:58.43) and second place in both the 200 freestyle (1:44.20) and the 500 freestyle (4:43.95), and Jesse Ford, who captured second place in the 100 backstroke (56.68), the 200 backstroke (2:03.00) and the 200 individual medley (2:04.13).
“”Santa Cruz was well prepared for this meet — it was a season capper for them — so it was nice to come away with a convincing victory,”” said Triton head coach Scott McGihon about the men’s success.
UCSD’s women also swam a solid meet, winning eight out of 14 events. They started off the day well by getting first, second and third places in the 400 medley relay. Jennifer Watanabe, Rosanna Delurgio, Frances Tran and Elaine Engel made up the winning team, finishing in a time of 4:02.38.
Tran had a strong day all-around, swimming to victory in both the 200 butterfly (2:09.47) and the 200 backstroke (2:12.95).
Other event winners were Kimmie Rice in the 100 backstroke (1:04.26), Delurgio in the 100 breaststroke (1:04.88), Engel in the 50 freestyle (25.37), Christine Hyjek in the 200 breaststroke (2:27.63) and Sarah Grant in the 100 butterfly (1:00.13). Sophie Levy stood out in the 500 freestyle, swimming a close race and just barely missing first place by a margin of eight-hundredths of a second with a time of 5:08.86.
“”All in all, it was a really nice day for our women’s team,”” McGihon said. “”Santa Cruz has a very good team and they made us swim fast.””
Aiding the UCSD swimmers were the divers. The female divers had a dominating showing, earning first through fifth place in the 1-meter diving and the 3-meter diving. Jennifer Margrave came in first place in both events, followed by Ashley Vogel in second place. On the men’s side, UCSD diver Peter Nichols obtained second place on each board.
Overall, the day was a solid end to UCSD’s home portion of the season. The women will compete in their last dual meet on Feb. 1 against USD. The next men’s meet will be the Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference Championships, which the women will also compete in from Feb. 20 to Feb. 22 in Long Beach, Calif.
