Salt Lake City – Utah holds heavy heads today (Jan. 16) as they took a defeat from both UCLA and Boise State. Utah managed to not score a single event victory today in the double-dual scoring format, while UCLA took the win against both Boise State and Utah, while Boise State took a win over Utah. Final scores were 182-95: UCLA, 159-118: Boise State, and 133-128: UCLA.
“Today got pretty ugly for us,” said Utah head coach Joe Dykstra. “This was probably the slowest we have [swum] all year. It just looked exhausting across the board.”
Freshman Emma Schanz from UCLA pulled double wins overall in the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke to highlight for the Bruins. In the 100-yard breaststroke, she swam a 1:05.18 and just out-touched Utah’s junior Stina Colleou (1:05.21) by .03 seconds. She also took the win on the 200-yard breaststroke, out-touching Utah’s freshmen Genevieve Robertson by a margin of 2:17.76-2:18.79.
In her 3rd individual event, the 400 IM, she was beat out by senior teammate Arlyn Upshaw 4:27.97-4:29.95.
“It was a good meet for us,” said UCLA head coach Cyndi Gallagher. “Everyone’s spirits were high. It was really competitive against both Utah and Boise State; It was great.”
From Boise State, senior Brittany Aoyama snagged first in the 100-yard fly (55.67), beating out UCLA’s senior Katie Kinnear. A 24.68 butterfly split from her on the medley relay the fastest of the field, combined her with Sam Wicks (26.17), Laura Wiliams (29.41), and Katelyn Martin (22.84) to win the 200 medley relay in 1:43.10 – more than a second ahead of UCLA.
“I thought we performed well,” said Boise State head coach Jeremy Kipp. “We’re starting to turn the page from heavy training to speed and performance. Today was a good first step to take one month away from Mountain West Championships. Salt Lake City is a tough place to race, and our team really responded well and got up for quality opponents today.”
Other wins for UCLA include:
- Junior Michaela Merlihan took first in the 1000-yard freestyle, touching in at a 10:24.53, while her teammate, Kinnear, grabbed first in the 200-yard fly (2:02.62).
- Freshmen Caroline McTaggart also won an event this afternoon for her team, finishing with a 51.77 in the 100-yard freestyle as her teammate junior Madison White finished first in the 200-yard backstroke (2:01.21).
- Senior Arlyn Upshaw finished the individual events on a strong note for her team as she finished first in the 400-yard IM, touching at a 4:27.97.
Other wins for Boise State include:
- Freshmen Felicity Cann grabbed first in the 200-yard freestyle with a 1:50.65 as teammate senior Sam Wicks finished first in the 100-yard backstroke (55.23).
- Junior Katelyn Martin and sophomore Emma Chard also finished first in their events; Martin taking the win the 50-yard free ( 23.67) and Chard in the 500-yard free (4:58.62).
- BSU took the wins in both the 200-yard medley (1:43.10 )and 400-yard freestyle relay (3:24.36). Sam Wicks, Brittany Aoyama, Laura Williams, and Katelyn Martin made up the 200-yard medley relay while Emma Chard, Martin, Aoyama, and Wicks made up the 400-yard free relay.
Although Utah did take a double defeat and walked away with no events wins, there were some close calls, a few swimmers put a good fight, taking second places. Of those swimmers were the aforementioned breaststrokers, and freshmen Gillian St. John, who took second in the 50-yard freestyle (24.18).
Up next for the top two teams in this double dual: both UCLA and Boise State will host their next meets, UCLA against Stanford in Los Angeles and Boise State against Denver in Boise. Utah will travel to Provo, Utah where they will compete against their rival school, BYU.
