The UC San Diego men’s and women’s swimming and diving programs both posted wins over visiting Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in season openers Saturday at Canyonview Aquatic Center.
The Tritons won 178-117 on the men’s side and 182-111 on the women’s, taking first place in 22 of 24 swimming events, including all four relays. Junior co-captain Paul Li produced three individual victories to lead all competitors.
UCSD and CMS were opening the new campaign against each other for the seventh year in a row. The Tritons remain undefeated in those match-ups with both the Stags and Athenas.
Senior diver Adam Springer became the first Triton to book his trip to the 2015 NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships in Indianapolis, Ind., totaling 303.97 points in the three-meter event to achieve the minimum standard of 295.
Li hit the wall first in the 200 free (1:42.71), 500 free (4:43.17) and 200 individual medley (1:57.46). Fellow junior Cole Heale swept the sprint frees by timing 20.83 in the 50 and then 46.51 in the 100. His mark in the 50 bettered his meet-record 20.92 from last Saturday’s Blue-Gold meet, and got under the NCAA B cut of 20.96.
Four Triton women were winners of multiple individual events on the day. Junior Naomi Thomas swept the butterfly distances (56.85, 2:05.50) and sophomore Jaimie Bryan was fastest in the 100 breaststroke (1:05.41) and 200 IM (2:09.93).
Then two newcomers made big splashes. Fresh off of three Blue-Gold wins, Stephanie Sin was first Saturday in the 200 free (1:53.33) in her official college debut, as well as the 500 free (5:05.11). Fellow freshman Julia Toronczak (Santee/West Hills HS) swept the backstroke races in 58.13 and 2:05.95.
The four breaststroke races were all highly-competitive affairs. Bryan edged Eva Chen (1:05.45) in the women’s 100 by a mere .04 seconds, before the fourth-year senior returned the favor in the 200, going 2:21.07 to touch out Bryan (2:21.18). Similarly for the men, junior AJ Zavala went 58.27 to sophomore Zachary Yong’s 58.59 in the 100, before Yong earned a measure of revenge in the 200 with a mark of 2:06.41, also just .04 seconds ahead of Zavala in 2:06.45.
Sophomore newcomer Michael Cohn (Solana Beach/Grossmont College), with his father Bill on the microphone as the “Voice of the Tritons,” pulled away at the end of an entertaining 200 back to win by more than a second in 1:52.01 over the Stags’ Matthew Williams, who bested the field earlier in the 100 back (51.29).
Remaining individual winners for UCSD were juniors Kyle Nadler (1000 free, 9:46.91) and Sean Malley (100 fly, 52.25), and freshmen Haley Hamza (1000, 10:42.47), Angie Phetbenjakul (100 free, 53.40) and Kevin Fink (200 fly, 1:56.23). Nadler rallied over the back half to get past teammate Sasha Mitrushina (9:50.15).
In addition to his sprint sweep, Heale anchored both the first-place 200 medley relay to begin the meet and 400 free relay to end it. The Tritons were trailing CMS when he hit the water in the medley before his blistering freestyle split of 20.25.
The Triton men and women both take a week off from competition before facing dual meets at Division I rival UC Santa Barbara on Saturday, Nov. 7, at 12 p.m.
