The seventh-ranked UC San Diego men’s swimming and diving team routed No. 21 Missouri S&T and No. 23 Colorado Mesa University Sunday at the Canyonview Aquatic Center. The fourth-ranked Triton women easily got past Colorado Mesa, but were defeated by Division I opponent San José State.
Meet scores for the men were 194.5-93.5 against S&T and 203.5-94.5 against the Mavericks. With the two victories, they improve their dual-meet record to 4-3 on the year. The UCSD women are 5-3 after taking down CMU, 219-81, and falling to SJSU, 186-110. The S&T men (2-2) beat CMU (2-7), 170-118. The Maverick women (3-6), receiving votes in the latest Division II national poll, were no match for the Spartans, who won going away, 236-61, to improve to a perfect 8-0.
Senior co-captain Jack Galvan swept the sprint freestyle events for the Triton men, timing 21.11 in the 50 ahead of freshman teammate Kevin Wylder (21.44) and 46.24 in the 100 in front of junior Cole Heale (47.23).
Junior and fellow co-captain Paul Li bested the field in his first 1000 freestyle race of the season (9:46.08), and later in the 400 individual medley (4:10.51), leading a 1-2-3 UCSD finish over freshmen CJ Pais (4:12.98) and Kevin Fink (4:14.72). The latter Triton tied for third with S&T’s Ryan Layne.
Sophomore Chandler Pourvahidi was himself a winner in a pair of individual events, first taking the 200 free (1:41.72) by two full seconds over junior Michael Leung (1:43.72). He then went 4:38.25 to hit the wall first by over three seconds.
Pourvahidi’s time in the 200 fell just .28 seconds shy of an NCAA consideration qualifier (1:41.44) in that event, and his success offered the rarity of coming from an outside position in lane one. Sophomore Austine Lee duplicated that effort for the Triton women in sprinting 24.01 from the same spot in the 50 free, beating out junior co-captain Colleen Daley (24.32) in second. Lee’s mark was a season best, improving her NCAA B standard from 24.05.
UCSD posted another 1-2-3 sweep of the men’s 200 backstroke, with sophomore Michael Cohn (Solana Beach/Grossmont College) turning in a time of 1:52.61 to lead junior Alex Moshensky (1:54.07) and Pais (1:56.32).
UCSD was first in both men’s relays, with Sean Malley, AJ Zavala, Julian Jacobs and Heale making up the 200 medley (1:34.22), and Galvan, Wylder, Jacobs and Heale the 400 free (3:05.80).
UCSD faces one final road meet for the season next Saturday, Jan. 10, taking on host Loyola Marymount and CSU Bakersfield in Los Angeles beginning at 12 p.m.
