Utah vs UCSB vs UCLA (women)
- Salt Lake City, UT
- January 10, 2025
- SCY (25 Yards)
- Full Meet Results
- Team Scores:
- Women:
- Utah 158 — #24 UCLA 142
- Utah 209 — UCSB 91
- #24 UCLA 185 — UCSB 103
- Men
- Utah 182.5 — UCSB 79.5
- Women:
On January 10, the UCSB men and women and the UCLA women traveled to Salt Lake City for a meet with Utah. Utah won all of their duals, with the Utah women upsetting the #24 ranked UCLA women to earn their first ever win against the Bruins.
Women’s Meets:
Utah and UCLA split most of the event wins, with Utah winning six, UCLA winning seven, and UCSB winning three.
Utah junior Erin Palmer won two individual events, and swam on both of Utah’s ‘A’ relays. She won the 50 free in 23.09 and the 100 free in 51.14. She also swam the freestyle leg of the medley relay where she split 22.71 to anchor the team of Alexia Duncan (26.45), Alyssa Sorensen (28.93), and Julia Bartell (25.19) to a 2nd place finish of 1:43.09.
The Utes’ 200 free relay touched in first, beating the UCLA ‘A’ relay by exactly a second. Palmer led off in 23.05 and she was followed by Emma Lemler (23.46), Isabella Riso (23.32), and Norah Hay (22.92)
Fellow junior Chloe Thompson also took two event wins, finishing first in the 1000 at 10:30.91 and in the 500 free at 5:06.15.
Utah’s final individual event win on the women’s side came from senior Holly Waxman’s in the 1-meter diving event with her score of 292.45.
UCLA won more individual events than Utah with seven total wins. Junior Rosie Murphy was individually responsible for three of those wins. She started her day with a sweep in the backstroke events, winning the 100 backstroke in 56.28, and taking the 200 back in 1:59.98. Murphy also took first in the 200 IM, swimming 2:04.20 in the event.
Ana Jih-Schiff and Eva Carlson split the breaststroke wins, and both of them participated on UCLA’s 200 medley relay win. Carlson won the 100 in 1:03.28, and she took 2nd in the 200 IM at 2:06.99. Jih-Schiff won the 200 breast, swimming 2:15.31 and finished 3rd in the 50 at 23.59.
Their 200 medley relay team of Fay Lustria (26.10), Carlson (28.12), Emma Harvey (23.71), and Jih-Schiff (22.71) went 1:40.64 to win the event by two-and-a-half-seconds.
The Bruins’ final event win came from diver Eden Cheng and her winning 3-meter score of 302.70.
The other three event wins came from UCSB junior Samantha Banos. She started with an event win in the 200 freestyle, stopping the clock in 1:51.62. She went on to win both distances of butterfly, coming in at 2:03.76 in the 200 and 55.71 in the 100.
Men’s Meet:
The men’s meet consisted only of UCSB and Utah, with Utah winning most of the events.
Junior Evan Van Brocklin went the only season best event win of the day, swimming 44.91 in his 100 free, improving from the 45.53 mark he set in October. VanBrocklin also won two more events, picking up 1st in the 200 fly at 1:49.71 and anchoring Utah’s winning 200 free relay in 20.17.
The rest of the 200 free relay team consisted of Layton Sealman (21.38), Marshall Odom (20.41), and Davis Stachelek (20.18), who came together with Van Brocklin’s 20.17 to win the event in 1:22.14.
Stachelek and Odom also grabbed individual event wins with Stachelek winning the 50 in 21.05, and Odom taking the 100 fly with his 49.98.
Utah sophomore Nick Chirafisi wasn’t on any relays, but he won both of his individual events, the 200 free (1:39.49) and the 500 free (4:34.00).
The other Utah event winners were junior Brandon Miller (200 back- 1:49.53), and pair of Freshman Owen Carlsen (1000 free- 9:35.18) and Daniel Yi (100 breast- 55.92).
The UCSB men took first in three individual events and one relay, and senior Kyle Brill played a role in three of them.
Brill won both his individual events, the 200 breast (2:03.48) and the 200 IM (1:50.90). He also swam breaststroke on UCSBs winning 200 medley relay.
The medley relay team of Matt Driscoll (23.16), Brill (25.57), Justin Wong (22.16), Zachary Tamusaitis (20.09) went 1:30.98 to touch before the Utah ‘A’ relay’s time of 1:31.36.
Driscoll was the other event winner for UCSB, taking the 100 back in 49.68.
Utah is back in action on January 17th hosting the University of Denver for their senior day.
UCSB will travel to Pacific to swim again on January 18th
UCLA’s next meet is January 17th vs Stanford.
I can see this being an upset with UCLA ranked at #24. I am not trying to be insulting to UCLA or the rankings but looking at the results, who is a potential NCAA scoring swimmer? Are athletes missing or do they have divers that score? If they are going to have scorers at NCAAs, I am not seeing it.
UCLA missed practices due to fire as well as received text notifications that the evacuation warning area of the fire was now bordering Westwood which included actions to take to prepare while they were at the meet. Swimmers were stressed, booking flights, texting their families. Not taking away Utah’s accomplishments (they swam great) but letting you know that UCLA swimmers at this meet were very stressed and distracted from this historic wildfire taking place in their backyard. They have spent the week training somewhere else due to the fires and air quality. Maybe a learning opportunity of how to compete and focus with outside stresses/distractions.