The Utah women’s swimming and diving team won five events but fell to No. 4-ranked Cal, 187.5-109.5) Friday afternoon at Ute Natatorium.
“I am fairly pleased [with the effort], but I wish we could have won a few more of the touch-ups,” said Utah head coach Joe Dykstra. “There were a lot of really close races that went against us. I am proud of the way our girls stepped up. It was one of those races where we were getting touched down by Olympic medalists and in some of those races, our girls were beating the Olympic medalists.”
“This is not your average, run-of-the-mill team that we competed against. This is one of the team’s that has a chance to win NCAA’s and has numerous members of the U.S Olympic team on it, as well as the U.S. head women’s swimming coach. We are honored to have them here for this meet and I’m really proud of the way our girls stepped up and raced against some of the best swimmers in the world. I think we have a lot we can build off of this.“
The Utes opened the meet with a second-place finish in the 200 medley relay as the team of Megan Kawaguchi, Stina Colleou, Melissa Paakh and Giuliana Gigliotti tapped in with a time of 1:44.60 – just behind Cal – who finished in a time of 1:43.54.
Maddie Meisel took second in the 1000 free with a time of 10:19.21 and Kat Wickham followed in fourth overall with a time of 10:40.03.
Despite swimming in the next lane to Olympic gold medalist Missy Franklin, Dorien Butter managed to finish in fourth-place in the 200 free after touching in 1:54.01, while Franklin took top honors with a time of 1:48.92.
Kawaguchi took second in the 100 back with a time of 56.07, just off the pace of Cal’s Rachel Bootsma, who finished with a time of 55.27. Kawaguchi would later go onto finish fourth in the 200 back with a time of 2:05.99, while teammate Amanda Barrett touched in second with a time of 2:02.54.
Colleou, an All-American for the Utes, took first in both breast events with a time of 1:03.71 in the 100 and and 2:17.97 in the 200 event. She managed to touch first ahead of Cal’s Marina Garcia Urzainqui in both events.
Petra Soininen helped give Utah its third first-place finish of meet after touching first in the 200 fly with a time of 2:03.67. She would later finish fourth overall in the 100 fly with a time of 56.91.
Maddie Jamora came within just .02 of a second in taking first in the 50 free, instead finishing in second-place with a time of 23.75 - .01 behind Cal’s Farida Osman, who finished in first-place with a time of 23.74.
If that race didn’t provide enough drama, Gigliotti and Cal’s Camille Cheng both touched in 52.00 in the 100 free to tie for first-place overall in the very next swimming event.
Meisel swam a hard-fought 500 free with a time of 5:04.51, finishing in third-place behind Cal’s Franklin (4:56.02) and Cierra Runge (4:57.26) after keeping pace with both swimmers throughout the majority of the race.
In diving action, Amanda Casillas took top honors in the one-meter with a score of 276.15 and placed second in the three-meter with a score of 283.43. Lauren Hill took third in the one-meter after scoring 249.68 and Haley Blount followed in fifth with a score of 238.80.
Cal closed out the swimming events with wins in 200 IM (Celina Li, 2:03.94) and the 400 free relay (3:25.66), but Utah’s relay team of Jamora, Butter, Rhianna Williams and Gigliotti made it a very close race after finishing in a time of 3:25.91.
Up next, the Utah diving teams will head to Atlanta, Ga., to compete in the Georgia Tech Invitational next weekend. The meet will take place at Georgia Tech’s Aquatic Center Nov. 21-23. The Utah swimming and diving teams will then be back in action Dec. 4-6, at the Texas Invitational, which will take place at the Texas Swimming Center in Austin, Texas.
