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UC San Diego On Verge of Seventh Straight PCSC Titles

UC San Diego

UC San Diego student-athletes produced seven more titles, six individual and one relay, on the third night of the 2015 Pacific Collegiate Swimming & Diving Conference (PCSC) Championships Friday at the Splash! La Mirada Regional Aquatics Center.

Tritons swept the men’s and women’s 400-yard individual medley finals to begin the evening portion, and also took both 200 freestyle crowns.

Juniors Maddy Huttner (4:24.01) and co-captain Paul Li (3:55.89) were the victors in the 400 IM, with Dari Watkins (1:51.03) and Michael Cohn (1:39.70) taking top honors in the 200 free. Freshmen Kevin Wylder (48.90) and CJ Pais (50.37) touched first in the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke, respectively. All were first-time individual PCSC champions with the excepton of Li, who won three individual events as the Male Swimmer of the Meet a year ago.

The women’s 400 medley relay of Julia Toronczak, Austine Lee, Naomi Thomas and Colleen Daley teamed up for a first-place finish in 3:46.29.

Looking for their seventh straight PCSC crowns, the fourth-ranked Triton women top a 12-team field with 944 points. Loyola Marymount is second with 819. The fifth-ranked UCSD men have collected 1036 points, with UC Santa Cruz a safe distance back in second (868) among seven competing squads.

Sophomore Zachary Yong, just like he did in his first go-around at the PCSC meet, broke the school record in morning preliminaries of the 400 IM, timing a meet-record 3:52.78 to better his own existing standard of 3:53.65 by almost a full second, while officially booking his trip to next month’s NCAA Championships with the second automatic qualifier for an individual Triton swimmer. Again just like a year ago, he was overtaken by teammate Li in the championship final at night.

Fourth-year senior Jaclyn Amog became the third UCSD woman ever to get under 55 seconds in the 100 butterfly, timing 54.76 in prelims to fall narrowly short of teammate Naomi Thomas’ mark (54.69), as well as an automatic NCAA qualifier (54.71).

Wylder produced a stellar morning swim in the men’s 100 fly, touching the wall in 48.34, just a shade off the program standard of 48.13 and automatic qualifier of 47.93, and No. 2 all-time after he had entered the meet with a previous best of 49.63.

The 2015 PCSC Championships conclude with two more sessions on Saturday, Feb. 21. Preliminaries begin at 9 a.m., and finals at 4 p.m., the latter preceded by a senior recognition ceremony starting at 3 p.m.

 

Pepperdine

The Pepperdine women’s swimming and diving team continued to impress on the third day of the Pacific Coast Collegiate Swim and Dive Conference Championships. Three Waves finished as runner-up champions in their event, while two Pepperdine records were broken.

Divers Sydney Newman (El Dorado Hills, Calif./Oak Ridge HS) and Lauren Stigers (Lexington, Ky./Henry Clay HS) both earned All-PCSC status in the 1-meter springboard. Newman delivered a personal-best score of 245.70 in the finals to take second place overall. She boasted the highest scoring individual dive of the meet, pulling a 9.0 for her inward 1 1/2 somersault.

Stigers scored 189.20 points to take eighth.

Kayla Gonzales (Bakersfield, Calif./Liberty HS) placed 11th with score of 144.90.

Pepperdine was impressive in the preliminary swim races, delivering a combined 18 season-best swims, including seven that went down for personal-best times. Eight more times would be lowered again in the finals.

Allison Naasz (Lodi, Calif./Tokay HS) broke one of the oldest standing records in Pepperdine history after finishing runner-up in the 200 freestyle. She first swam the fastest 200 of her career in the prelims (1:53.10, 4th in program history), before an even faster finals swim. Her time of 1:51.87 relegated Evy Wild’s 1993 time of 1:52.60 to second place on the all-time list.

Laura Graziano (Tucson, Ariz./Salpointe Catholic HS) placed 27th with a near-PR time of 1:59.53. (1:59.23 is her all-time best). Heather Connelly (Chesapeake, Va./Great Bridge HS) shaved nearly two seconds off her previous benchmark, clocking a 1:56.46.

Erin Himes (West Chester, Pa./Unionville HS) also set a new personal-best time in the 200 (2:05.31).

Jessica Mosbaugh (Los Alamitos, Calif./Los Alamitos HS) missed her own 100 breaststroke record by just one hundredth of a second in the prelims, but made up for it in the finals. With a second-place time of 1:02.47, she lowered her own record and met the NCAA B standard qualifying mark.

Fitzsimmons, Amanda Rowe (Reno, Nev./McQueen HS) and Presper all followed in the top-30.

Sabrina Altman (Kula, Hawaii/Seabury Hall) was the fourth Wave of the day to achieve top-eight All-PCSC status. The freshman placed sixth in the finals of the 100 backstroke behind a time of 59.03. She posted a marginally faster time in the prelims at 58.99.

Codie Cox (Sonoma, Calif./Maria Carrillo HS/Santa Rosa JC) and Abby Crawford (Weddington, N.C./Weddington HS) also reached the finals, and finished in the top-25.

Kelly Presper (Irmo, S.C./Hammond School) reached the finals of the 400 IM, charting a season-best 4:53.76 in the prelims. She improved her time to 4:53.41 in the finals for 16th place. Emma Fitzsimmons (Southport, Conn./Fairfield Ludlowe HS) joined her in the finals, first setting a new personal-best in the prelims (5:03.50) before lowering it even further in the finals (5:02.69) to finish in 23rd.

Rowe lowered her PR in the 400 IM to 5:20.97 to placed 15th.

Nicolette Barreiro (Valencia, Calif./Hart HS) led the Waves in the 100 butterfly. She entered the finals in 16th place before moving up two spots behind a season-best time of 58.34 – just one tenth off her all-time best.

Kathrine Kuhlmann (Liberty, Mo./Liberty HS) broke the 1-minute mark for the first time in the 100 butterfly, and placed 25th following a final swim of 59.84. Cox placed 30th behind a 1:01.31.

Pepperdine ended the day with the 400 medley relay.  Altman, Mosbaugh, Barreiro and Naasz combined for a time of 3:56.44 to take sixth.

The PCSC Championships conclude tomorrow.

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