The UCSB swim teams defeated Big West Conference foe UC Davis in the Gauchos’ first home dual meet of 2009 at Campus Pool on Saturday afternoon. The Gaucho men defeated the Aggies by way of a 168-94 score and the women won their half of the dual via a 154.5-87.5 score.
With the victories, the Gauchos improve their 2008-09 dual records to 4-1 on the men’s end and 5-2 on the women’s side.
UCSB got the ball rolling in the first event of the day as the Gaucho women’s “B” and “A” relay took first and second, respectively, in the 200 medley relay. The team consisting ofKendall Neely, Sara Nicponski, Naomi Javanifard and Courtney Bauer touched first with a time of 1:47.03. The UCSB men’s “A” relay also captured first place with Kevin Ferguson,Jeff Sudbury, Danny McClary and Bradley Matsumoto finishing in 1:31.81.
During the first individual event of the meet, Lindsay Gaudinier and Kelsey Lewis went one-two in the 1000 freestyle. Each posted a season-best mark in the event with Gaudinier finishing in 10:18.01 and Lewis finishing in 10:34.27.
In the men’s 1000 free, UC Davis’ Adam Borchard broke-up the UCSB run with a first place finish. He touched the wall in 9:31.47. Brochard also took first in the 500 free later in the meet, finishing in 4:36.90.
The first win on the women’s side for the Aggies was in the ensuing event – the 200 free. Heidi Kucera finished in 1:53.10. The event marked the first of three top finishes for Kucera, who also won the 200 breast (2:16.43) – just out-touching Katy Freeman by .10 seconds – and the 400 individual medley (4:28.04). Kucera was the only Aggie woman to capture a first-place finish during the meet.
Joe Plume got the Gauchos back on track with a victory in the 200 free, finishing in 1:40.85 and beating out Davis’ Scott Weltz by a little over a second. The win, according to head coach Gregg Wilson, was a turning point in the meet, “Joe’s win took a lot of wind out of their sails. He stood up and just nailed it.”
Following the victory in the men’s 200 free, the UCSB men won the next seven events and the women won the next eight.
Chris Good picked up wins in the 100 back (51.27) and the 200 back (1:50.29). Katie Ure was also a double event winner, registering the fastest time in the 200 fly (2:05.93) and the 200 back (2:06.97). McClary posted victories in the 200 fly (1:50.19) and the 100 fly (49.89). Rounding out the double event winners were Javanifard, who placed first in the 100 back (58.42) and the 100 fly (57.65), and Anne Marie May, who dominated the sprint free events taking first in the 50 (23.47) and the 100 (51.40).
For the second consecutive meet, Matsumoto picked captured first in the 50 free, touching the wall in 20.82 seconds. He finished second to Dan Morris in the 100 free with Morris finishing in 46.50. Travis Jepson also posted his second consecutive win in the 200 breast, finishing in 2:05.68.
Nicponski (100 breast – 1:04.02), Sudbury (100 breast – 56.80) and Meagan Brown (500 free – 5:07.60) round out the list of Gaucho individual event winners.
During the last two events of the day, the UCSB “A” teams swept the 400 free relays. The team of Gaudinier, Bauer, Yamamoto and Sasza Lohrey took top honors on the women’s side with a time of 3:29.87. The men’s team of Matsumoto, Scott Vogelgesang, Morris and Sudbury capped the meet off with a first place time of 3:03.84.
“This is a very good rivalry that we have developed (with UC Davis),” said Wilson. “True to form, Davis has some really good swimmers. Their distance swimmers are some of the best in conference and Heidi Kucera had a very good day, so we had our work cut out for us. It was a total group effort today. A lot of kids are swimming well and even missing a few swimmers, we proved we had a lot of depth.”
The Gauchos will be back in action on Jan. 31 when they travel to UNLV for a non-conference dual with the Rebels. The meet is scheduled for an 11 am start.
