Pepperdine
For the third day in a row, the Pepperdine swimmers delivered countless season-best times at the A3 Performance Meet. Junior Jessica Mosbaugh shattered the 11-year old 200 butterfly record by nearly two seconds, bringing her program record count to four.
Mosbaugh (Los Alamitos, Calif./Los Alamitos HS), already holding Pepperdine records in the 100 breaststroke, 200 breaststroke and 200 IM, added the 200 butterfly to her collection today. The junior clocked a 2:05.62, relegating Lindsey Krusen’s 2003 mark of 2:07.07 to second place on the all-time list.
All of Mosbaugh’s teammates in the 200 fly, Lauren Stigers (Lexington, Ky./Henry Clay HS), Nicolette Barreiro (Valencia, Calif./Hart HS) and Elena Witham (Buena Vista, Colo./Houston County HS), also delivered season-best times in the event.
The Waves were especially impressive in the 100 freestyle. Nearly all 14 Pepperdine representatives charted season-best times, including seven that went down as personal records.
Allison Naasz (Lodi, Calif./Tokay HS) paced the team with a season-best mark of 53.80.
Laura Graziano (Tucson, Ariz./Salpointe Catholic HS), Heather Connelly (Chesapeake, Va./Great Bridge HS), Amanda Rowe (Reno, Nev./McQueen HS), Erin Himes (West Chester, Pa./Unionville HS), Witham, Emma Fitzsimmons (Southport, Conn./Fairfield Ludlowe HS) and Cailey Stuebner (Los Altos, Calif./Mountain View HS) all lowered their personal-best times in the 100 freestyle.
Graziano and Connelly both clocked sub-55.5 times, coming in at 55.34 and 55.41, respectively. Rowe shaved 1.5 seconds off her previous PR time, posting a 58.15 today. The junior set five new career-best times at the A3 Performance Meet, and set six new season-best times overall.
Himes also had a stellar meet, breaking and re-breaking personal records four times in three events. Today, she lowered her PR time in the 100 freestyle to 58.21.
Rounding out the career-best performances were Witham (58.64), Fitzsimmons (59.94) and Stuebner (1:02.28).
Barreiro, Rachel Wilt (Wenatchee, Wash./Wenatchee HS), Abby Crawford (Weddington, N.C./Weddington HS), Blair Kacynski (Superior, Colo./Monarch HS) and Sabrina Altman (Kula, Hawaii/Seabury Hall) all swam their fastest 100 free races of the season.
The season-best times continued to fall in the 200 breaststroke. Stigers came close to a PR, but settled for a season-best time of 2:28.74. Fitzsimmons clocked a 2:40.42, while Katie Giacobbe (Duluth, Ga./Greater Atlanta Christian School) delivered a time of 2:48.65.
Crawford and Stuebner opened the day in the 200 backstroke, both turning in their fastest times of the fall. Crawford finished the race in a time of 2:17.95, followed by Stuebner at 2:26.39.
The majority of the team will now break until the New Year, heading back to action on Jan. 2-3 with the Chris Knorr Invitational hosted by Cal Lutheran. Mosbaugh wraps the year at the AT&T Winter Nationals, held on Dec. 4-6 in Greensboro, N.C.
Fresno State
Fresno State swimming finished in eighth with 419 points at the A3 Performance Invitational at East Los Angeles College on Saturday evening.
The Bulldogs’ best event of the day was the 200 Breaststroke. Sophomore Hailee Baldwin swam a 2:18.31 to finish ninth. Junior Brooke Rodriguez, who was in 13th after the prelims, swam a 2:19.45 in the finals to post a season-best time and finish 11th.
In the day’s first event, the 200 Backstroke prelims, sophomore Kali Conlon swam a personal-best 2:05.89. In the finals this evening, she swam a 2:06.85 to finish 23rd. Freshman Allison Short posted a personal-best in the finals with a time of 2:07.33 to finish 30th.
Kelly Simmons swam a 17:12.47 in the 1650 Free to bring home a seventh place finish. She was joined in the top ten by senior Courtney Sheehan, who finished 10th with a time of 17:19.23.
Junior Leah Hatayama posted her first sub 52-second time in the 100 Free. The Sanger-native swam a 51.37 to finish 25th. Senior Lucy Titchin posted her best time this season in the event, with a 51.71 to finish 27th.
Fresno State will now be off for nearly six weeks before returning to competition on January 6 when they travel to Bakersfield to take on UNLV and Bakersfield. That meet will begin at 1 p.m.
UC San Diego
Sophomore Michael Cohn won the 200-yard backstroke event in school-record time to help the UC San Diego men’s swim team hold on to second place, and the Triton women ended up sixth, to conclude the 2014 A3 Performance Invitational Saturday night.
UCSD served as the host of the three-day meet, the top competition on its fall schedule annually, for the sixth successive year, with East Los Angeles College Swim Stadium the venue for the second straight edition. Swimwear manufacturer A3 Performance is the new title sponsor.
The Triton men wound up with 1246.5 points through the full 18-event slate, barely holding off Cal Poly in third (1211.5) while running their streak of top-five finishes at the meet to seven successive years. UC Santa Barbara bested the eight-team field with 1911 points. Among 15 squads on the women’s side, UCSD finished sixth with 543 points. San Diego State led from start to finish to defend its 2013 title with 1166, deflecting a charge by UCLA (1130). The top-tier collegiate invitational is made up primarily of NCAA Division I programs.
Cohn (Solana Beach/Grossmont College) turned in the top time during morning preliminaries of the 200 backstroke in 1:47.18 to nab the top seed for the championship final, just ahead of junior teammate Alex Moshensky in second (1:47.96). The performance eclipsed Moshensky’s school mark of 1:47.50, achieved at last year’s conference championships. In the final, Cohn went over a full second faster to lower the program standard further to 1:46.04 and narrowly out-touch UC Santa Barbara freshman Billy Mullis (1:46.36). He fell just .14 seconds short of becoming the first UCSD swimmer this season to earn an automatic NCAA qualifier.
Moshensky was eighth at night in 1:50.51, while freshman CJ Pais won the consolation final for a ninth-place effort overall in 1:49.63.
In the women’s 200 back to begin the final session, freshman Santee product Julia Toronczak (West Hills HS) went 2:02.41 for eighth, having swam 2:00.67 to attain an NCAA B cut and the No. 4 seed during the morning.
Junior Cole Heale (45.54) and senior co-captain Jack Galvan (45.84) went 4-7 in the championship final of the 100 free. Sophomore Jaimie Bryan (2:17.37) and senior Eva Chen (2:17.93) were 5-6 in the 200 breaststroke final. Sophomore Zachary Yong (2:01.04) and junior AJ Zavala (2:03.99) were 4-7 in the men’s 200 breast. Chen and Zavala’s times were personal records.
The A3 Performance Invitational ended with San Diego State swimming a pool-record 3:18.03 to win the women’s 400 free relay, and USC going a meet-record 2:53.70 to take first on the men’s side. The UCSD women’s foursome of junior co-captain Colleen Daley, sophomores Catherine Woo and Natalie Tang, and freshman anchor Angie Phetbenjakul, were seventh in a season-best 3:27.16. The men’s relay of sophomore Julian Jacobs, senior Sean Malley, Heale and Galvan turned in a mark of 3:01.70, also a season best, for third. The swims meant a pair of NCAA B cuts.
Other top individual finishers for UCSD included Daley (100 free, 13th, 51.21) and fellow juniors Naomi Thomas (200 fly, 13th, 2:03.33) and Paul Li (200 fly, 12th, 1:51.69).
Meanwhile in Claremont, Triton divers participated in the Inland Empire Diving Invitational hosted by Pomona-Pitzer at its Haldeman Pool. Senior Adam Springer was sixth out of 10 participants on the three-meter springboard (240.35) and eighth among 10 on the one-meter (232.20). Junior Garet Webster was eighth in the three-meter event (232.05) and 10th in the one-meter (197.30).
For the women, Natalie Mouzooni made her season debut and was sixth out of 10 from both one meter (185.95) and three (191.15). Fellow senior Liz Bird was eighth (170.75, 172.15) in each event.
The UCSD swimmers and divers have one more competition remaining for the 2014 calendar year. They will travel across town to San Diego State on Monday, Dec. 29, to take on another trio of Division I sides in the Aztecs (women only), Air Force and Incarnate Word beginning at 2 p.m.
