January 11, 2008

Jan. 11, 2008

Complete Release in PDF Format

The Schedule
Jan. 12
USC at UCSB, 1 PM
Campus Pool
Santa Barbara, Calif.

Last Time
Nov. 17
UCSB at UNLV Winter Invite

Weekly Roundup
With the Gauchoʼs gearing up for a three week break in their competition season, they decided to make the best of what they had at the UNLV Invite. With four first place finishes, the men captured the Invite title with 740 points overall. The women were narrowly defeated by UNLV, garnering 818 points to the Rebels 849. However, with 12 individual and relay victories it was hardly a letdown for the Gaucho women.

May-jor Accomplishment
Sophmore Anne Marie May continued to slim down her time in the 100 free and in doing so, broke her own record. At the Husky Invite, May broke her 2007 record in the event with a time of 50.10. Instead of just settling for one record per month, she trimmed her time down to a neat 49.34. Mayʼs time also puts her inside the NCAA Automatic Cut time of 49.42. May also placed first in the 50 free on the first day of competition, garnering a season best time of 22.60.

Double Vision
Junior Bradley Matsumoto decided to take a page out of Mayʼs book and captured both the 50 and 100 free titles. In the 50 free, Matsumoto beat out his TCU counterpart for the win in 20.34. On the last day of competition, he took the top spot in the 100 free by just .09 of a second (44.90). Junior Chris Good held everyone in suspense, waiting until the last day to win two events. Goodʼs first victory of the day took place in the 200 back where he defeated conference foe Peter Kline from Cal Poly in 1:48.81. Number two came in the 200 fly, where Good took the cake in 1:51.51. He also came in second in the 400 IM in 4:03.35.

Triple Threat
Winning three important races can be considered a Triple Crown of any sport, and thus junior Erin Yamamoto's performance at the UNLV Winter Invite may be dubbed a mini-Triple Crown in the swimming world. Her first win came in the 100 fly over her Utah competitor in 55.95. Yamamoto took the 200 free in 1:51.71 by .42 of a second over the next closest swimmer. She closed out her winning record by taking the 200 fly by over a second in 2:04.15.

If You're Not First, You're Last
There is no better way to start off a swim meet then with first place. May, Courtney Bauer, Naomi Javanifard, and anchor Nadia Dwidar took this into consideration as they overtook their Utah opponents by over a second win the 200 free relay (1:33.38). The womenʼs 400 and 200 medley relay teams consisting of Jessica Cruzat, Sara Nicponski, Yamamoto, and May took both relay victories. The 400 medley relay was up first and dominated the home team, UNLV, by over two seconds (3:48.13). With only the menʼs race to rest, the 200 medley relay team came back to win in 1:44.32. The Gaucho "B" squad squeezed into second place in 1:45.91.

The next day ended again with a top-rated performance in the womenʼs 800 free relay. Bauer, Yamamoto, May and freshman Lindsay Gaudinier stood atop the winnerʼs podium with their three second victory over Utah (7:34.19). To conclude the meet, Bauer, Dwidar, Yamamoto, and May beat UNLV for the win in the 400 free relay (3:22.88) and Matsumoto, Dan Morris, Curtis Bauer and Scott Vogelgesang took the 400 free relay win on the menʼs side (3:01.47).

Freshman Brittany Borowitz swam a season-best time of 2:05.80 for the win in the 200 IM. Junior Katy Freeman took the victory in the 200 breast (2:18.51) by beating out teammate Nicponski who finished sixth in the race (2:22.77). Freeman and Nicponski took the 2-3 finish earlier in the 100 breast finishing in 1:05.34 and 1:05.61, respectively. Other top finishers include Danny McClary who took third in the 200 IM (1:54.63) and Jessica Cruzat who placed third in the 100 back (57.39) and sixth in the 200 back (1:48.81). Chris Wiggin and Borowitz both placed third in the 200 fly (1:52.57, 2:07.15).

Tracking the Trojans
This weekend UCSB takes on the non-conference No. 20 USC men and No. 21 USC women to get the rest of the dual meet season underway. The Trojanʼs last meet was the Husky Invitational where six of their school records were broken. Last season, the Gaucho men were defeated by USC 141-118 with Vogelsang and Good each winning one individual event. The women lost 140-111 with Cruzat winning the 100 and 200 back and May beating out the competition in the 50 free.