The San Jose State University women’s swim team wrapped up a busy and successful road weekend by winning five of 10 events and placing first among eight competing teams at the UC Irvine/Ayres Hotel & Suites Invitational relay meet at UCI’s Anteater Aquatics Complex on Sunday, January 6.
The win marks the Spartans’ first at the annual event. San Jose State, coming off back-to-back dual meet victories at Cal State Bakersfield over the previous two days, scored 336 points to hold off host UC Irvine in second place with 277 points. A pair of its Western Athletic Conference opponents, Boise State (258) and the University of San Diego (245), were third and fourth, respectively, followed by Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (169), club team Atlantic Legends (115), Whitman (38) and Willamette (32).
San Jose State’s ‘A’ relays put together five first-place efforts, including the first two and last two events of the afternoon, and finished second in four events. UC Irvine won the remaining five events. Individually, senior co-captain Brie Marhenke, junior Lauren Mar and freshman Caitlin Macky led the way as part of three winning relays each. Freshmen Meghan McCurley, Kirsten Trammell and Daphne Yeung were on two winners apiece, with junior Tarolyn Robertson and sophomores Erin Garcia and Hannah Tringham grabbing single victories.
Top highlights for the Spartans included the winning 200 freestyle and 400 freestyle relays. The 200 freestyle ‘A’ foursome of Marhenke, Mar, McCurley and Yeung matched the meet record of 1:36.93 previously set by WAC rival Nevada in 2002. The 400 freestyle ‘A’ relay to close the event of Mar, Yeung, Marhenke and McCurley, narrowly missed another meet mark by just .66 seconds, timing 3:32.06 to fall just short of Nevada’s 3:31.40, also from 2002.
“We knew we had a shot at taking the meet when we looked at the psych sheets,” said third-year San Jose State head coach Sage Hopkins. “We talked about a couple of things beforehand. One was racing hard, and the other was mental toughness. Many of our swimmers competed in a number of races today, and we talked about staying tough through each of them. Rudie Guerrero, for instance, swam in eight of the 10 events, with just a few minutes in between, and we had others in six or seven events.
“We had good performances from Lauren Mar, Brie Marhenke, Caitlin Macky and Erin Garcia in particular, but got all-around great performances from top to bottom. One of our goals for the meet was to get a lot of racing in, and we welcomed the rain, which helped emphasize the importance of racing under less than favorable conditions and swimming hard regardless of the conditions. It was a great victory for our team to carry us through the last portion of our season.”
Mar continued a remarkable weekend for the third-year junior. She added a second lifetime-best mark in three days with her 50 backstroke leadoff split of 26.74 on the first-place 200 medley relay to begin the meet. The native of San Francisco, Calif., had also posted a lifetime best in winning the 200 backstroke in a dual meet at Cal State Bakersfield in 2:08.27 on Friday. Her previous bests were 26.81 and 2:08.41, respectively, both from the 2006 WAC Championship in her freshman season. The 50 back split was a school record at the time.
Swimming with Mar on the 200 medley relay were Macky, Robertson and Marhenke as the Spartans timed 1:46.80 to top 19 other entrants. The ‘B’ relay of Rudie Guerrero, Kirsten Trammell, Jillene Golez and McCurley went 1:54.30 for fourth.
San Jose State will now be idle from competition for nearly three weeks before closing the regular season with a dual meet at home on Senior Day at The Aquatics Center against Cal State East Bay on Saturday, January 26, beginning at 1:00 p.m.
San Jose State at UC Irvine/Ayres Hotel & Suites Invitational
January 6, 2008
Team Standings (Relay Meet)
San Jose State 336
UC Irvine 277
Boise State 258
University of San Diego 245
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps 169
Atlantic Legends 115
Whitman 38
Willamette 32
