Swim and Dive record strong results on senior day.
Senior day was successful for the UCSD swimming and diving teams this past Saturday, as both the No. 7 Triton men and the No. 4 women defeated visiting California Baptist University at the Canyonview Aquatics Center. The women won by a decisive 167–133 score and are now 8–3 on the season, while the men took a 180–120 victory and improved to 6–3 overall.
“It was a great meet for us,” UCSD men’s head coach Daniel Perdew told the UCSD Athletics Department. “It was an awesome result. Obviously a win is nice, but they brought it from the first event. The energy was here.”
Facing off against the No. 16 Lancers (2–2), the Triton men took nine out of 16 events to secure their win. The biggest highlights of the day came appropriately via senior co-captain Jack Galvan, who raced in his final home meet in memorable fashion.
Galvan took the top spot in both the 50-freestyle and 100-free with finishing times of 20.98 seconds — a season best — and 45.81 seconds, respectively. He also anchored a first-place 200-free relay (1:24.04) effort and led a spectacular comeback victory in the 400-medley relay (3:24.09) to earn yet another first-spot finish.
“Jack has been getting faster and faster with each dual meet we’ve had,” Perdew said. “It’s great to see him get under that 21-[second] and 46-[second] barrier in dual meets. It’s something that I don’t know that we’ve ever had on the men’s sprint side.”
The rest of UCSD’s men’s squad held their own, with Tritons sweeping the podium in the 100-fly, the 100-backstroke and the 500-free. First-place finishers were senior Sean Malley in the 100-fly (50.94), sophomore Julian Jacobs in the 100-backstroke (51.39) and junior co-captain Paul Li in the 500-free (4:41.27).
As for the longest distance, UCSD’s junior Kyle Nadler was the first to touch the wall in the 1000-free with a time of 9:41.08.
On the women’s side, the Tritons also took nine out of 16 events against the No. 7 Lancer counterparts (2–2). Junior co-captain Colleen Daley was the top finisher in the sprints, winning first in the 50-free (24.01 seconds) and the 100-free (52.50 seconds).
Freshman Stephanie Sin continues to impress in spite of her age, sweeping the long distances with times of 5:03.83 in the 500-free and 10:23.96 in the 1000-free.
Sophomore Austine Lee improved her NCAA consideration qualifier time by nearly a full second with a 1:04.04 first-place finish in the 100-breaststroke.
“My strengths are in my underwater, so I took a really strong pullout,” Lee said. “I just knew I had to drive forward and really close my feet. That’s just what I thought about the whole race, and it got me through.”
Lee, Daley, freshman Angie Phetbenjakul and sophomore Catherine Woo teamed up to finish with the top time of 1:35.93 in the 200-free relay. Woo was also a first-place winner in the 200-free with a time of 1:54.34.
Prior to the meet, a total of 11 graduating Tritons — eight women and three men — were honored, including co-captains Galvan and Summer Bennett.
“It’s just great to see all of the seniors swim really well and make it through all four years because I know it’s tough,” Lee said. “UC San Diego is such a great school and it’s hard enough in academics, so it’s great to see them finish strong [in the pool].”
With the conclusion of Saturday’s meet, the Triton men will begin preparing for the postseason, with their regular season over, while the Triton women have one more dual meet remaining against San Diego State University on Saturday, Jan. 31 at home.
