Both men and women go 2–1 on weekend full of races.
Having competed on the road since early November 2014, the UCSD swimming and diving team finally returned to its home pool at Canyonview Aquatics Center this past weekend with positive results against tough opponents. Both the No. 4 women and No. 7 men finished the two-day set of meets with a 2–1 record.
The Triton women took victories against Division-I opponent Grand Canyon University (150–141) and Colorado Mesa University (219–81), before falling 186–110 to another Division-I foe in San Jose State. The men were easily overrun 202.5–90.5 by Grand Canyon but bounced back with a pair of wins against No. 21 Missouri University of Science and Technology (194.5–93.5) and No. 23 Colorado Mesa (203.5–94.5). With the weekend’s results, the Triton women improve to 5–3, and the men stand at 4–3 on the season.
The Triton women rang in the new year with a strong win against Grand Canyon on Saturday. While San Diego State and University of the Incarnate Word also competed on that day, UCSD was only scored against the Gauchos after already competing against the latter two schools a week earlier.
SDSU appeared by far the superior women’s squad, though UCSD and Grand Canyon appeared to keep things close throughout an evenly matched meet. While the Gauchos held an advantage in the latter half of the day, UCSD seized a 121–119 lead after junior Naomi Thomas (58.36) and senior Jaclyn Amog (59.32) took first and second respectively in the 100-yard butterfly.
Both sides continued to battle it out until the final race in the 200-yard freestyle relay, in which the Tritons’ B-relay team of Amog, sophomore Natalie Tang, senior Eva Chen and freshman Haley Murphy took first at 1:38.56 to seal a triumphant UCSD win.
On the men’s side, the Gauchos completely dominated UCSD with their resounding victory. The Tritons’ only bright spot came in the mile race (1650 free) when sophomores Sasha Mitrushina (16:18.43) and Chandler Pourvahidi (16:24.70) and junior Kyle Nadler (16:25.64) took the top three spots.
The following day, both Triton men and women recorded dominant wins against Colorado Mesa. Both squads’ finishing tallies were more than double the Mavericks’ overall scores.
After Saturday’s bitter loss, the men would complete a perfect day with another easy victory, this time against Missouri Science and Technology. Strong performances went all around in the 194.5–93.5 win, including a sweep at the podium in the 200-yard backstroke from sophomore Michael Cohn (1:52.61), junior Alex Moshensky (1:54.07) and freshman CJ Pais (1:56.32).
As for the women, the Tritons failed to keep up against San Jose State, as the Spartans took the top spot in 11 of 14 races of the day. UCSD freshman Stephanie Sin showed promise in her first-place finish (1:53.18) in the 200-yard freestyle. Sophomore Austine Lee (24.01) and junior co-captain Colleen Daley (24.32) took first and second, respectively, in the 50-yard freestyle.
After this weekend’s decent showing, the Tritons will return on the road for a one-day meet on Saturday, Jan. 10 to face host Loyola Marymount University and Cal State Bakersfield. The meet will commence at 12 p.m.
