Photo by Griffin Scott<\/p>\n
SAN LUIS OBISPO, California, September 19. CELINA Li started her sophomore season by defending her \u201cQueen of the Pool\u201d title today in the first meet of the season for the California Golden Bears.<\/p>\n
The meet, a tradition for Cal and host California Polytechnic State University for the past five years, features each swimmer racing 100 yards of each stroke plus a 100 IM. The swimmer with the fastest total time is declared \u201cQueen of the Pool.\u201d Caitlin Leverenz won the title for the first three years before Li took the mantle following Leverenz\u2019s graduation.<\/p>\n
Missy Franklin, coming off a Pan Pacific championships in which she swam through the pain of a back spasm, swam only three of the five events today. She posted a 55.96 in the 100 fly, 50.27 in the 100 free and 57.13 in the 100 IM.<\/p>\n
Li retained her title by nearly 2.5 seconds over Elizabeth Pelton despite not winning any events. She was second to Canadian freshman Noemie Thomas in the 100 fly, 53.59 to 54.41, with Bootsma placing third with a 54.94. Li was third in the 100 back with a 55.29 behind Bootsma\u2019s 54.67 and Elizabeth Pelton\u2019s 54.86.<\/p>\n
Bootsma had a lead of nine hundredths of a second over Li going into the 100 breast, which turned out to be the deciding race. Li\u2019s 1:05.70 in the 100 breast (second to Marina Garcia\u2019s 1:03.84) was two seconds faster than Bootsma\u2019s 1:07.76 to give her the advantage going into the final two events. Pelton posted a 1:07.62 in the 100 breast to keep the race for second close.<\/p>\n
Behind Franklin\u2019s winning time in the 100 free Li, Pelton and Bootsma pretty much canceled each other out in this event. Pelton’s 51.02 and Li\u2019s 51.18 just beat out Bootsma\u2019s 51.25. In the 100 IM, Li was touched out by Pelton in the final event, 56.21 to 56.32. Franklin was third while Bootsma wrapped up the day with a fourth-place time of 58.40.<\/p>\n
Final top 10:<\/p>\n[table \u201c\u201d not found \/]
\n\n
Allison de Peralta nearly cracked into the top 10 for Cal Poly, finishing 12th overall with a total time of 5:03.99. She posted times of 58.60 in the 100 fly, 58.64 in the 100 back, 1:09.41 in the 100 breast, 56.09 in the 100 free and 1:01.25 in the 100 IM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Photo by Griffin Scott SAN LUIS OBISPO, California, September 19. CELINA Li started her sophomore season by defending her \u201cQueen of the Pool\u201d title today in the first meet of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":104531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[43003,25037,28940,26648,26654,29070,27863,26652,25136,25281,26647,26643],"class_list":["post-110161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-college","tag-allison-de-peralta","tag-caitlin-leverenz","tag-caroline-piehl","tag-celina-li","tag-elizabeth-pelton","tag-jasmine-mau","tag-kelly-naze","tag-marina-garcia","tag-missy-franklin","tag-noemie-thomas","tag-rachael-acker","tag-rachel-bootsma"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n