The Matador swim team faired well against some stiff competition at the three-day Nike Cup sponsored by UC Irvine at the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach from Nov. 15-17.
The CSUN men’s swim team came in at ninth place with 288 total points and the women’s team finished in 13th place with 195 points.
“We did great,” said Barry Schreifels, head coach. “Our team only had two days of rest before the competition and they were up against some great swimmers.”
The competition included 17 men’s teams and 22 women’s teams with Brigham Young, UCLA, Stanford, Pacific, UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego among the schools represented at the meet.
The winners of the team titles were Stanford for the men’s competition with 1,965 points and UCLA for the women with 1498.5 points. Brigham Young University placed second in both the men’s and women’s competition with 1,002 and 887.5 respectively.
For the men, several relay teams finished in the top ten. The 200 medley relay team of Matt Sulkevich, Chris Ardoin, Jeff Hart and Chris Grafton got ninth-place in the 800 freestyle and the team of Emre Celik, Clark Hansen, Ardoin and Hart took eighth in the 200 medley. The 400 medley relay team of Celik, Henson, Jeff Raimondi and Hart also came in at eighth place with a time of 03:32.37.
The CSUN men scored points in several other events, including the 200 freestyle relay, with Grafton, Henson, Ardoin and Hart finishing in ninth place with a time of 1:25.67.
Individually, Celik placed ninth in the 100 backstroke with a time of 50.94 and also placed 11th in the 200 backstroke with a time of 1:51.19. Hart took 19th in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 21.17 and 16th in the 100 freestyle at 46.79.
“Emre Celik had a lifetime best in the 100 and 200 yard backstrokes and Jeff Hart also in the 100 yard freestyle,” said Schreifels.
For the women, sophomore Olesya Senicheva had the best individual finish, placing 12th in the 100 butterfly with a time of 58.40. Senicheva also finished 25th in the 200 individual medley at 2:08.21. Robyn Johnson took 13th in the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:06.39 and Simone Luker also finished 13th in the 200 breaststroke at 2:24.30.
In the women’s relays, the 200 medley relay team placed ninth and the 200 freestyle relay team of Senicheva, Sanda Jukic, Zeynep Ucer and Elise Schuetz finished with a time of 1:40.20 for 12th place. The 800 freestyle relay team consisting of Senicheva, Juvic, Ucer and Meagan Meadows took 13th place with a time of 8:02.56.
“Everyone on the team did a great job. They more then met my expectations,” Schreifels said.
The Matador men’s squad will be back in the water again in two weeks for the University of Texas Invitational from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1. The women’s team will be competing again on Jan. 5 at the Irvine Invitational.
