As the Winter Quarter gets underway, the UC San Diego swimming and diving team took to the road over the weekend of Friday, Jan. 11, losing against Division I powerhouse UCLA and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation rival UC Santa Barbara on Jan. 11 at UCLA. They also lost against another MPSF rival in California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo on Jan. 12 at Anderson Aquatics Center.
In its dual meet against the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Mustangs, the women’s team nearly came out with the win, ultimately losing late in the meet 155–145, with freshman Tina Reuter leading the way by winning the 200-yard freestyle, 200-yard backstroke, and 200-yard individual medley. The Tritons had four first-place finishers, with senior Emily Lambert winning the 100-yard butterfly, sophomore Lindsay Clark winning the 200-yard butterfly, freshman Brittney Miles winning the 400-yard medley, and, freshman Ellie Whitney winning the 500-yard freestyle to round out the swim category. For the UCSD women’s diving team, senior Brooke Abrantes won the three-meter diving event.
On the men’s side, the Tritons fell to the Mustangs 181–119, though they had a few individual event winners. Senior Garrett Tse won the 200-yard individual medley, sophomore Tyler James won the 100-yard backstroke, freshman Spencer Daily won the 50-yard freestyle, redshirt freshman Graham Hauss won the 100-yard freestyle, and freshman Ivan Kurakin won the 200-yard backstroke.
Both the men’s and women’s teams struggled to match up in their competitions against the UCLA Bruins and the UCSB Gauchos, with both teams losing to their competitors. The men fell to the Gauchos 96–163, moving to 4–1 on the season, while the women lost 78.5–182.5 to the Gauchos and 95.5–160.5 to the Bruins.
Despite these losses, the UCLA meet was anything but a failure for the Tritons. On the day, the Tritons had at least one top-four finish in 18 of the 28 total events and saw three individual swimmers finish first in their respective events. The men’s team saw James win the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 50.83 seconds and Kurakin win the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:50.43. Kurakin also finished third in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 51.61 seconds. For the women, Reuter coasted to victory in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:03.67, beating the second-place finisher by nearly 4 seconds.
On Jan. 5, the Tritons hosted a large group of opponents, winning every single match against California State University, East Bay; California State University, Bakersfield; and Loyola Marymount University.
As the season goes on, the teams will look to build momentum heading into the MPSF Championship Meet beginning on Feb. 20, where they will have a chance at revenge through rematches against both the Gauchos and Mustangs. Before the MPSF meet, the Tritons go on the road to take on UCLA once again at the UCLA Diving Invitational, which will run from Jan. 18 to Jan. 20, with the University of Hawaii and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo competing as well.
