UCSB Sweeps Cal Poly to End Gregg Wilson Era in Santa Barbara

The UCSB Gauchos have sent a program legend out with a victory. In the final home meet in the career of head coach Gregg Wilson, who has helmed the UCSB men’s and women’s teams for an astonishing 40 years, his team swept Cal Poly handily on Saturday.

Final Scores

• Women: UCSB 163-Cal Poly 117
• Men: UCSB 164-Cal Poly 97

Coach Wilson wasn’t the only one participating in his final home meet for UCSB. The Gaucho seniors also went out with a bang, including two individual wins each from Lauren Vosseler and Katie Records.

Vosseler, a sprint freestyle, won the 50 free in 23.51, part of a UCSB 1-2-3-4 finish; and later led a 1-2-3 in the 100 free with a 51.33. While in both cases, the times are among her slower performances of the season, in both cases they’re also well ahead of where she was at this point last season.

Records, meanwhile, first won the 100 breaststroke in 1:04.08 and later the 200 IM in 2:06.01. In between she placed 2nd in the 200 breaststroke (2:18.33), finishing behind Cal Poly’s Sage Speak, who won by over a second with a 2:16.96. That’s the 3rd-fastest time in program history from Speak.

While the depth of UCSB resulted in a rather lopsided score, the Cal Poly women actually won 8 out of 14 events on the day (including an uncontested 1-meter diving event) and several lifetime bests.

Among the highlights came when Cal Poly freshman Meghan Melihan won the 1000 free in 10:20.61 – a second faster than her lifetime best and good for 3rd-best on the program’s all-time list.

On the men’s side of the meet, UCSB’s Simon Wong was the top breaststroker of the day via a sweep of the day’s breaststroke events – though neither was an easy win.

In the 100, he swam a 57.70 to finish just .09 seconds faster than Cal Poly’s Brian Whittington. Later, in the 200 breaststroke, Wong swam 2:04.63 ahead of Whittington’s 2:04.80 for a second individual victory to go with his opener in the medley relay.

While Cal Poly wasn’t able to get any wins from a very deep breaststroke group, sophomore Pearu Pold came up aces twice. He won the 500 free (4:31.68) and the 1000 free (9:25.20). The latter is a season-best time for him and ranks him 3rd in the MPSF so far this season.

While this was coach Wilson’s final home meet, his season is far from over: in 3 weeks, his team will head to East Los Angeles College for the MPSF Championships. This was also Cal Poly’s final meet before the upcoming MPSF Championships.

Full meet results available here.