UC Davis Split With In-State Rival UC-Irvine

DAVIS, California, February 3. UC Davis women finished 1-4 in the final 400-yard freestyle relay on Saturday afternoon to earn a 122-120 come-from-behind victory over UC Irvine at the Schaal Aquatics Center on senior day. The Anteaters set eight different pool records on the men's side to run away with a 145-98 win.

The UC Davis women are now 11-6 overall and 2-2 against Big West competition in dual meets while the men now stand 9-5 and 5-2 in conference.

The women's meet came down to the final 400 free relay as UC Irvine held a one-point advantage, 112-111, heading into the event. The team of Amber Bonds, Melanie Covert, Hannah Watanabe and Jill Olson earned first-place for the Aggies in 3:32.27. Watanabe swam an outstanding third leg and made up two seconds to set up Olson on the final leg in which she outdistanced her opponent by over two seconds.

The team of Katie Griffin, Laura Leppke, Bergen Beck and Kathryn Jovino finished fourth in the event (3:48.62) to seal the win for the Aggies.

In addition to the 400 free points, UC Davis also had to wait the final scores from the women's diving events to make sure they had locked up the win. Krysta Chaldekas did not disappoint as she swept both high and low boards with scores of 245.40 and 238.28, respectively. Her time on the 1-meter board was a season-high.

Olson was the star individually for the women on the day as she claimed the top spot in three events. She started with a win in the 200 free (1:53.38) and followed that up with a victory in the 500 free (5:06.45) before capping her day by swimming the final leg on the 400 free relay team.

Heidi Kucera set a new pool record in the 200 breaststroke with her winning time of 2:20.23, which betters the previous mark by .22 seconds. Kucera also claimed second in the 200 individual medley in 2:07.49.

Jennifer Ginsberg was the other Aggie to claim a victory as she took first in the 200 backstroke with her team-best time of 2:07.89.

UC Irvine started out with a 1-3 finish in the opening 200 medley relay to jump out to an early 13-4 lead. The Anteaters would continue to hold that lead until the final 400 free relay when the Aggies scored the 1-4 finish to claim the victory. UC Davis continued to fight throughout the meet and earned 1-2-3 finishes in the 500 free and 50 free to stay in the running. Solid finishes by the Anteaters had them up by as many as 41 points.

"It's a sweet victory because they (UC Irvine) have such a strong team full with tremendous swimmers," said women's coach Barbara Jahn. "We knew they'd be strong in the first half of the meet, so we really counted on the form swims in the second half as our chance to come back. We just swam with a lot of heart today and this is a great boast for us as we head into the conference championships."

UC Irvine also set a new pool record in the 200 IM in 2:04.80.

The Anteater men enjoyed outstanding performances across the board as they establish eight new Schaal records and never trailed during the meet. In all, UC Irvine set records in the 50, 100 and 200 free, 200 butterfly, 200 backstroke, 400 IM and the 200 medley relay.
Irvine went 1-2 in the opening 200 medley relay and established the pool record time of 1:31.10 to jumped out to a 15-2 lead. The Aggies responded in the following 1,000 free as Alex Arbios (9:41.58) and Kyle Leto (9:45.42) cut the deficit to 17-19. That would be the closest UC Davis would get all day, as the Anteaters claimed the top spot in the next eight events to run away with the victory.

The Aggies ended the meet on a solid note as the 400 free team of Evan Kraus, Russ Underwood, Nik Kemp and Patrick Jacobson finished first with a season-best time of 3:05.31.

Arbios , Andrius Urbaitis, Kaleb Wallen and Matt Crawford finished third in the 400 free with a time of 3:11.93.

The other Aggie to claim a win on the men's side was diver Mike Hui, who had a season-best time of 243.23 on the high board.

"You never like to lose, but this meet will show us where we need to improve and what we need to work on for conference championships," said men's coach Pete Motekaitis. "It was not a lack of focus on our part. We knew coming in that we had some match up problems. UC Irvine is just a good dual squad and they'll be tough come conference championships. We'll look to improve before we head into conference championships and we'll continue our goal to become the best team in UC Davis history."

The Aggies also took a break to honor eleven seniors during the final home meet of their careers. The seniors honored were Jacobson, Watanabe, Wallen, Crawford, Payne, Griffin, Leppke, Hui, Urbaitis, Hannah Ures and Valerie Moore.

UC Davis will take the next two weeks off to prepare for the Big West Swimming and Diving Championships, which will take place Feb. 20-24 in Long Beach.

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