California Press Release
BERKELEY – Five Golden Bears won two events apiece and the Cal women's swimming & diving team swept both the 200-yard medley and 200 free relays, leading to a 165-128 dual-meet victory over UCLA Saturday at Spieker Aquatics Complex.
One day after downing USC, the Bears came back with another solid performance to improved their record to 7-1 overall and 6-0 in the Pac-12. Cal closes out the regular season on Saturday, Feb. 11 by hosting Stanford in a noon showdown in Berkeley.
"I thought we did a nice job of staying strong again and being competitive," head coach Teri McKeever said. "We did talk about backing up yesterday's performance, and I felt we had really good energy with a good crowd."
Overall, the Bears claimed first in 13 events, starting with a 1-2-3 finish in the opening 200 medley relay. The foursome of Amy Bilquist, Marina Garcia, Noemie Thomas and Valerie Hull touched ahead of the pack in 1:40.70, with two Cal squads right behind.
Chenoa Devine followed with second straight sub-10-minute 1000 free as she led wire-to-wire before finishing in 9:59.71.
Bilquist – the national leader in the 100 back – swept the 100 free (1:47.20) and 200 free (48.85) for the Bears, while Thomas claimed both the 100 fly (52.45) and 200 fly (1:58.13). Thomas paces the NCAA in the 100 fly and is undefeated in the event this year.
Abbey Weitzeil sprinted to victory in the 50 free (22.24), as the Bears took the top four spots with Farida Osman, Maddie Murphy and Kristen Vredeveld following in succession. Weitzeil also changed pace from her sprinting form and won the 100 breaststroke in 1:02.39.
Senior Celina Li had perhaps the toughest double, scoring first place in the 500 free in a season-best 4:53.31 and then came back barely 20 minutes later to win the 400 individual medley in 4:17.74.
In addition, sophomore Phoebe LaMay earned victories on both the 1-meter (289.35) and 3-meter (323.55) springboards.
Cal closed out the afternoon with another 1-2-3 showing in the 200 free relay, led by a time of 1:31.94 by Keaton Blovad, Thomas, Hull and Osman.
"We're getting close to Pac-12's and NCAA's, so we took a look at each individual and how we put them in situations to keep building their confidence moving into championship season," McKeever said of some of the different events Bears swam. "For example, Amy sometimes only gets to do the backstroke, so it's good to swim freestyle. I want to make sure that Abbey is swimming more than just the 50 and the 100 free for the next four years, and Celina did a nice job in the 500 free for us, and then was able to swim the 400 IM."
