The University of California, Berkeley Women’s Swimming and Diving Team announced their team awards via the Cal Athletics website yesterday. They gave out seven total awards highlighted by 2017 NCAA championships Swimmer of the Meet Kathleen Baker and senior Kristen Vredeveld.
The 2017 Most Improved Award went to freshman Chenoa Devine. Devine finished 19th in the 1650 at the 2017 NCAA Championships in Indianapolis. She did so by dropping over four seconds off of her previous personal best. Over the course of this season, she moved up to third on Cal’s all time list in the 1650.
Senior Kristen Vredeveld won a trio of awards for the Cal Bears. She won the Golden Bear award, Warren Hellman Scholastic Award and Kathie Wickstrand Leadership Award. Vredeveld posted the team’s highest GPA at 3.95 and finished 15th individually in the 100 freestyle at NCAAs.
Sophomore Kathleen Baker took home the team MVP award. Baker was named the NCAA Championships Swimmer of the Meet in 2017 after winning three individual events in Indianapolis.
In diving, Hayden Tavoda was given the Coaches Award. Tavoda solidified herself as a great Cal diver, ranking highly in both the 1 meter and 3 meter events. She set personal bests in both events this year.
National Champion Farida Osman was given the swimming Karen Moe Humphreys Coaches Award. Osman won her first individual title at NCAAs this year in the 100 butterfly event. She also holds the Cal team records in the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly.
The Cal Women finished second in the team race at this year’s NCAA Championships behind Stanford. With experienced swimmers like Baker and Devine returning, they will surely look to make a run at the 2018 team title.
As a former Stanford Cardinal athlete and a current huge fan, I am appalled at some of the comments on this thread. These comments are not indicative of the kind of people I know that support either team or institution. The rivalry between Cal and Stanford is a wonderful rivalry between two fantastic schools with wonderful student athletes and coaches. Both places have so much to offer. They each help the other to raise their levels of competition and have typically done so with class. Neither team’s school, coaches or athletes is deserving of this bashing. Congratulations to the Cal women’s team and coaches on their many successes both in and out of the pool. I root for your continued… Read more »
LOL,
Classy post. I live in the bay area and have ties to both Cal and Stanford, both elite level universities with pretty impressive swimming and water polo programs. I think very highly of both Cal head coaches, Dave Durden and Teri McKeever, and Greg Meehan, a former assistant at Cal under Durden, has done a terrific job of returning the Stanford women to the top of the podium.
Sadly, it is easy for internet cranks like The Crap Inquisitor to take pot shots at roster attrition. Ot happens at all schools, regardless of support systems for a variety of reasons. This is especially true for ultra-competitive schools where swimmers have to actually attend classes and take exams.
Swimswam commenters complain about there not being enough female coaches. Then they trash one of the world’s best coaches, Teri McKeever, in every Cal article. Decide what you want people
AGREED
Those Golden Bears gave it a good shot with some outstanding performances. No one was going to realistically derail the amazing LSJU juggernaut’s relentless onslaught this year, but the Cal women did their part in denying their arch-rivals a relay title sweep, and along with Lilly King & Mallory Comerford’s help, the individual titles sweep as well lol. IMO, Cal went some ways to redeem themselves, after their relatively “disappointing” 3rd place national finish last season.
Farida Osman often an unassuming unsung hero, but the senior ace came thru in several clutch spots for her team mates. Encouraging to witness Kathleen Baker continuing her Rio momentum, hope she will be poised to help Team USA this summer against what looks… Read more »
Yes, I agree that Cal did very well at NCAAs this year, especially when considering the immense attrition and decline of this year’s senior class over the course of their collegiate careers. From a career achievement perspective, Farida Osman was the one shining star of the original eight recruits in this senior class. Franklin and Li saw early success but then entered a phase of significant and sustained decline. Batchelor, Young, and Speers were completely out of the picture very early on. Despite commendable persistence and a relatively strong finish, Vredeveld’s career at Cal never came remotely close to the promise she showed coming in as a recruit.
Ms. Osman was THE outstanding Cal senior. Tip my hat to her. Ms. Osman appears nice, enthusiastic, unselfish, talented athlete, FAST swimmer. At Cal, the drama rewarded, so not many awards for the “nice” and normal.
NCAA swimmer of meet award is given by the CSCAA and is the same award as “CSCAA Swimmer of Year”. It is one award, not two.
Missy’s decline the past two years was after she left Cal. Her final NCAA season was pretty spectacular.
WRONG
NCAA mean nuthin to rest of world
Franklin FAILED to make a single final at Rio
Couglin Maclouglin Pelton Bootsma Leverentz Biquilst Kennedy all FAILED at trials
Baker very lucky to qualify saved by Coach Marsh
Volmer lost her worlds record
No medal for Osman Boyle Weitzel Thomas Cheng Au Kong
Pleeze compair kal gals to how Ledecky Manuel Neal Dirado all did in Rio
Fact: Coach Meehan develop all the greatest DOMESTIC talent
Missy trained with Todd leading up to the Olympics, so that’s not on Teri.
Vollmer came back from having a child on only about a year of training to win an individual silver medal, so that’s hardly a failure.
Kennedy has been at SwimMAC since 2012, so you can’t put that one on Teri either (and frankly she performed well at trials–third place is still an accomplishment).
Baker trained with Teri up until the month before trials and has continued her strong performance this year with Teri, so in my book Marsh doesn’t get the credit.
Weitzel had yet to step foot on CAL’s campus when she swam at Rio, so that wasn’t Teri.
Coughlin… Read more »
Add Cierra Runge to the list…scored 49pts and set an NCAA record in the 500 under Teri…two years later she is at wisconsin and guess how many points she scored for the team.
Cierra Runge left Cal and Cal coaching to try to reach the dream of making the Olympic team. She did it! Then in Rio, she won an Olympic Medal!
Thanks for the perspective. All potential recruits should note that a single 15th place finish at NCAAs now qualifies as “a monster senior year” at Berkeley, and that this year’s senior class should be characterized as exemplary.
Agreed. Wouldn’t exactly poo-poo Missy’s THREE 2015 NCAA ind. titles as having “entered a phase of significant and sustained decline”… In particular that 1:39.10 🙂
Farida is quite the stud.
Wasn’t aware of KV’s injury. Gutsy of her to persist and come back. Looks like they have a really great support system at Cal!
Spectacular support system (for those that survive). Of the 36 freshman swim recruits who arrived from 2008/09 to 2014/15, 15 failed to swim at Cal beyond their sophomore year (this generously does not count Franklin, who as many here have noted, also left Teri to swim somewhere else).
Didn’t she split a 46 in a relay? Kind of a big deal