In a full weekend of swimming, the UCSD women’s swimming and diving team dropped a duel meet versus the University of San Diego Toreros on Friday, but rebounded to beat Cal State Bakersfield on Saturday.
The men’s team fell to Bakersfield.
The women’s first meet, held at USD, consisted of 16 events: two diving events, the 400-meter medley relay, the 1000-meter freestyle, the 200-meter freestyle, the 100-meter backstroke, the100-meter breast stroke, the 2000-meter butterfly, the 50-meter freestyle, the 100-meter freestyle, the 200-meter backstroke, the 200-meter breast stroke, the 500-meter freestyle, the 100-meter butterfly, the 200-meter individual medley and the 400- and 200-meter freestyle relay.
The match, which began with a hailstorm during warm-ups, did not get much better for the Tritons, as USD placed first in 13 out of the 16 events.
“”We swam very poorly, and they swam well,”” summarized head coach Scott McGihon. “”That’s pretty much what the match came down to.””
However, there was a silver lining, as sophomore Jennifer Watanabe continued her excellent swimming with a first-place finish in the 200-meter freesyle event and the 200-yard backstroke, winning with times of 29.86 and 32.76, respectively. The other top finisher for the women’s team was junior Lindsey Meeks in the 100-yard breaststroke with a winning time of 31.80.
Fortunately for the women, Saturday was a new day, as they dominated Bakersfield, 149-82.
Junior Molly McCorkle placed first in both the 100- and 200-yard backstroke, while Watanabe and Sharon Smith were individual winners. At the end of the day, four freshmen had qualified for the NCAA meet at the end of the year.
The men’s swimming team was unfortunately unable to come up with a victory, as it was beaten 134-86 by Cal State Bakersfield. However, the men’s 400-yard freestyle relay team, composed of junior Christian Deck, sophomore Luke Seed, sophomore Danny Fischer and senior Rusty Jones impressed.
“”I don’t think [the relay team has] ever be that fast at this point in the year,”” McGihon said.
Another bright spot was Triton Ryan Long’s victory in the 200-yard individual medley.
“”His time was exceptionally fast,”” McGihon said.
Not only was it fast, it was also good enough to qualify Long for the NCAA finals.
While both the men’s and women’s teams ended up with losses after the weekend was over, McGihon was still optimistic.
“”I think that the NCAA finals are more important than winning dual meets,”” he said. “”And the way both the men and women are swimming right now, we should do good [in the finals].””
“”[In order to improve] we need to keep fine tuning, and work on starts and turns,”” McGihon said. “”However, we are swimming very well for this time of the year.””
The Tritons will have plenty of opportunities this weekend to improve, as they send their divers to the USC Invitational on Friday, and then square off against Claremont College and UC Santa Cruz on Saturday in Claremont.
