The men’s and women’s swim teams had two busy weekends in a
row, first competing in a three-team meet on Nov. 10 against UC Santa Barbara
and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, then trekking to Long Beach from Nov. 15 through
Nov. 17 to compete in the Nike Cup, a huge meet with 20 other teams. While the
Tritons made a mediocre showing in their first meet against the Gauchos and the
Mustangs, they had several great performances at the Nike Cup.
Although the Triton teams expected a challenge from the
Division-I UCSB and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo squads, UCSD had a particularly
poor performance, as both squads were blown out by the Gauchos and the
Mustangs.
Although the teams lost by over 100 points to both
opponents, they had a few outstanding individual and relay performances. The
women’s 200-meter freestyle relay team of freshmen Anju Shimura and Ashtyn
Douglas and juniors Erinn Deters and Aubrey Panis placed second with a time of
1:39.01. The men’s 200-meter freestyle relay squad of sophomores Scott McCoid,
Daniel Perdew, Todd Langland and freshman Brandon Maryatt also finished second
with a time of 1:26.04.
In individual performances, junior Kendall Bohn took third
in the 100-meter breaststroke and improved her time from last week by almost
three seconds to 1:06.81. Sprinter Perdew notched two third-place finishes with
a time of 21.52 in the 50 freestyle and a mark of 47.29 in the 100 freestyle.
According to senior Ryan Kloos, the Tritons were well aware
of the challenges facing them as they took on formidable opponents, and viewed
the meet as preparation.
“The Santa Barbara meet is always a hard meet because they
are faster than us, but it’s good to get practice against that kind of team
before [the] Nike Cup,” he said. “[The] Nike Cup is one of our main meets of
the year.”
Panis agreed, saying that the Tritons were not too concerned
with the losses. She highlighted the team’s hope that it would swim faster in
Long Beach.
“This meet was an opportunity to tune up our racing
strategy,” she said.
The Nike Cup gave the Tritons the chance to test if their
challenges against UCSB and Cal Poly had proved beneficial. UCSD battled
against some tough competition, including Stanford University, Brigham Young
University and the U.S. Air Force Academy, and proved they were up to the task,
finishing seventh and eighth overall in the women’s and men’s competitions,
respectively.
Shimura had some of the team’s best performances, finishing
third in the 200 backstroke with a time 2:03.60, sixth in the 100 backstroke
with a finish of 57.70 and seventh in the 50 freestyle, finishing in 24.08.
For the men, Perdew touched the wall fourth in the 50
freestyle and swam a 20.34 in preliminaries.
The relay teams also placed well at the meet, with the
women’s 400 medley relay of Shimura, Bohn, sophomore Karla Holman. and Deters
finishing fourth with a time of 3:52.68. The men’s 200 freestyle relay of
Perdew, senior J.P. Oliver, Maryatt and Langland also finished fourth in their
race with a mark of 1:23.78.
Panis, who finished sixth in the women’s 200 backstroke,
said that the team was very excited about its performance at the Nike Cup and
continues to look forward to nationals.
“This was a good meet,” Panis said. “It got people qualified
for nationals, which is always a big goal we have for Nike Cup. People swam
really well and placed high.”
With these two meets under their belts, the Tritons will
have plenty of time to recover and prepare for their next challenge, the
beginning on Dec. 15, followed by the Redlands Diving Invitational on Dec. 16.