The CSUN men’s and women’s swim teams both finished in ninth place at the UC Irvine Speedo Cup at the Belmont Plaza in Long Beach on Nov. 16-18.
The meet featured several top-ranked swim teams, such as Stanford and USC.
“I’m sure that helped inspire us,” head coach Barry Schreifels said. “All of those teams have Olympic swimmers. At least the top teams.”
In the men’s overall team performance, the Matadors scored 380.5 points in their ninth place finish just behind Cal Baptist (389). Stanford dominated the meet, taking the top spot with 1,803.5 points, while the second place team, Brigham Young University, scored just a little more than half of Stanford’s points with 911. The Air Force Academy finished just behind BYU with 908 points.
Schreifels was impressed with overall performance of both the men’s and women’s teams.
“It was the best weekend we’ve had in years and years,” Schreifels said. “I couldn’t have asked for more.”
The men’s team displayed a lot of success in the relay competitions. In the 400-yard medley relay, the Matadors placed sixth with a 3:28.07 finish. Stanford took first place with a time of 3:14.54. In the 200-yard medley relay, the Matadors finished in eighth place with a time of 1:34.53. The men proved themselves in the long distance relays as well, matching their eighth place finish in the 800-yard freestyle relay, with a 7:03.06 finish.
“We beat a lot of great teams in the relays,” Schreifels said.
The Matadors put up solid times in the individual races. Clark Henson finished 15th in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 59.03 and Emre Celik finished ninth in the backstroke competition with a 50.93 finish. The time is a new school record.
In the longest competition of the meet, William Baier (16:09.91) finished the 1650-yard freestyle in tenth place.
In the women’s overall team performance, CSUN finished just ahead of the University of New Mexico (349) with a final score of 359. BYU managed to take first place with a total of 1,088 points followed by the University of San Diego with 749. USC (636) and Big West Conference rival UC Irvine (635.5) finished in third and fourth places.
“I was not surprised by the men,” Schreifels said. “I was very pleased by the women’s team.”
The women’s team matched the men’s performance in the relays. In the 200-yard freestyle relay, the Matadors finished eleventh in a tight race with a 1:39.95 finish, only three seconds behind first place San Diego. They also managed a respectable 3:56.58 finish in the 400-yard medley for sixth place.
The women put up several solid finishes in the individual competitions as well. In the 200-yard fly, Melanie Cupitt finished 12th with a 2:09.03 finish while Robyn Johnson (1:05.63) finished seventh in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Shannon Colavito’s time of 5:06.68 in the 500-yard freestyle was enough to give CSUN an 11th place finish.
Olesya Senicheva (2:08.78) matched Colavito’s 11th place rank in the 200-yard individual medley relay.
Up next the Matadors will travel to San Luis Obispo to compete in the Cal Poly Invitational on Dec. 1.
