MONTEREY PARK – The UCSB swimming and diving team finished second at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships, which concluded on Saturday night at East Los Angeles College.
During the four-day affair, UCSB won 10 event titles, set five new meet records and broke six school records.
UCSB captured its first win of the day in the 200 breaststroke. Katie Records beat out teammate Sophia Yamauchi for first place with a time of 2:13.41. Yamauchi finished second in 2:13.74 and Paige Bradley touched sixth in 2:16.99.
The Gauchos saw the same placement in the 200 butterfly. Andrea Ward took first in 1:59.16, which marked a new school and meet record. Emma Hunt touched second in 2:00.20 and Anne Peanasky rounded out the Gaucho finalists with a sixth-place finish in 2:03.55 (2:03.14 in prelims). Monica Garcia scored some points during the consolation heat, taking 12th in 2:04.28 (2:03.29 in prelims).
Behind the strong Gaucho finishes in those two events, UCSB momentarily jumped back into first place with 649 points, 11 ahead of second-place BYU.
That lead was short lived, however, as the Cougars’ 62 diving points were added to the total giving them 700 points heading into the last event.
In the final relay, UC Davis’ 400 free relay team edged out UCSB. The Gaucho team of Ward, Hunt, Peanasky and Yamauchi took second in 3:24.56, which is an NCAA ‘B’ cut.
UCSB finished the meet with 699 points while first-place BYU finished with 732.
In the evening’s first event, Heren Alanis had the Gauchos’ top finish in the 1650 freestyle. The freshman placed fourth in a time of 16:50.48. Micaela Velasquez touched in 17:09.43, which was good for eighth, and Katie Reeves also scored for UCSB, taking 16th in 17:28.96.
Allie Knight took third in the next event, the 200 backstroke. The sophomore broke her own school record in the event during the morning’s preliminaries, touching in 1:57.67. She finished in 1:58.73 during the finals. Taylor Munk took 11th place in 2:04.04 (2:03.55 in prelims).
Kendall Neely represented the Gauchos in the 100 free finals and placed eighth in 52.26 seconds (51.45 in prelims). Sasza Lohrey qualified for the consolation finals and placed 15th overall in 52.64 seconds (51.82 in prelims).
At the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, the Gaucho divers concluded their meet with the platform competition. Caila Baltas had her best finish of the meet, taking seventh with 142.80 points (167.50 in prelims). Noelle Provenzano took 13th with 105.90 points.
