Fresno Pacific's Wesley Coles and Bavindeep Basra won a combined five races as the Sunbirds competed against UC Santa Cruz and CSU Bakersfield on Saturday.
"Overall this was a fairly solid meet for us," said head coach Josh Christensen. "The conditions weren't ideal this weekend, but I thought we did a better job overcoming that on Saturday compared to Friday."
Coles paced the men with two victories on the day. The senior won the 1000 freestyle (9:45.34) and the 200 butterfly (1:54.68), and took second in the 500 free (4:44.33).
"Wesley has been a workhorse the last four years," said Christensen. "Today was his last 1000 free-200 fly-500 triple. He also kicked off the meet with the 400 medley relay. He was tough as always."
FPU also received strong swims from freshman Austin Hussain and Maxim Shcherbakov on the day. Hussain won the 100 freestyle at 47.40 and took second in the 200 free with a touch of 1:45.33, which was just behind the winning time of 1:45.24. Shcherbakov won the 100 breaststroke (55.54), which was another B standard qualifying mark for the sophomore, and was victorious in the 200 breaststroke (2:02.87). He also finished second in the 200 IM at 1:56.89.
Both Hussain and Shcherbakov joined Coles and Luka Barisic on the 400 medley relay, which took first at 3:25.48.
For the women, Basra shined for the Sunbirds with three individual victories. The sophomore won the 200 butterfly (2:09.65), the 200 breaststroke (2:26.20) and the 200 IM (2:09.73).
"Bavi was awesome this weekend," noted Christensen. "She's leading vocally and by example. I couldn't ask for a better weekend of swimming from her."
The Sunbirds' Olga Melnikova was also first in the 100 backstroke at 1:00.61, while Daria Belova touched first in the 100 butterfly at 57.63.
Full team scores were not made available by UCSC after the meet.
The Sunbirds will have one more meet to prep for the conference championships, as FPU hosts Senior Day at Sunnyside Aquatics Center on Saturday, Jan. 30. The dual with Biola is slated for a noon start.
