UCLA
UC Santa Barbara
Bruins Down UC Santa Barbara, 162-100
October 25, 2019 | Swimming & Diving
LOS ANGELES โ The UCLA women's swim and dive team continued its unbeaten start under first-year head coach after defeating visiting UC Santa Barbara by a score of 162-100 on Friday afternoon at Spieker Aquatics Center.
The Bruins (3-0) won 12 of 14 events, missing out only in the 100 and 200 back which were both won by Zoe Cosgrove of UCSB (0-1).
Four separate UCLA swimmers won multiple events on Friday. Freshman Daniella Hawkins claimed wins in both the 500 and 100 free, Amy Okada picked up victories in the 200 free and 100 fly, Maisie Jameson sprinted to first-place finishes in the 50 and 100 free, and Kenisha Liu won thrilling races in the 200 breast and 200 IM.
"Our depth is really strong so far, and I think that's a function of how hard we're training right now," said Wolfrum. "Everybody is really having to work and everybody gets a chance to push each other. Between consistently hard training and different training groups, everyone has a point during the week where they have to work really hard and you can see the results in our depth."
UCLA moved to 35-1 all-time against UCSB with the victory.
The Bruins claimed first place in both relay races โ the 200 medley and 400 free โ despite using some new swimmers on the A Team.
Freshmen Gabby Dang and Brooke Schaffer swam the leadoff and anchor legs, respectively, of the winning team in 200 medley that finished in 1:42.92. Sophomore Claire Grover handled the breaststroke and Amy Okada swam the butterfly on that team.
Schaffer and Grover were also both on the winning 400 relay team, teaming up with Jameson and freshman Rachel Rhee to complete the race in 3:26.72.
Hawkins, who won both the distance free events two weeks against Utah, had an even stronger performance against Santa Barbara. The San Ramon, Calif. native won both the 500 free (4:54.45, nearly three seconds under her Utah time) and 1000 free (10:00.11, over 10ย seconds under her Utah time), finishing over 10 seconds faster than the No. 2 finisher in the latter race.
Okada opened up a strong overall performance with a win in the 200 free (1:50.87). She would later go on to clinch the 100 fly title with a season-best time of 54.49.
In the breaststroke, UCLA went 1-2-3 in the 100 and 1-3-4 in the 200. In the 100 breast, Grover (1:02.78) won by a comfortable margin while Liu (1:05.60) and Emily Lo (1:06.03) beat out the rest of the pack. In the 200, freshman Lauryn Johnson picked up her first collegiate win with a time of 2:03.86.
Maisie Jameson was a standout in the sprint free events, leading the Bruins into the first break with a huge advantage after winning the 50 free at 23.55. That event also served as the second time that the Bruins placed the top-three finishers. After the break, Jameson came back out and won the 100 free with a time of 50.92, the best by a Bruin so far in the 2019-20 campaign.
The closest race of the day was the final individual race, the 200 IM. In that showdown, Liu and UCSB's Cosgrove battled back and forth for the lead multiple times over the course of the race. After falling behind by a few seconds during the backstroke, Liu bounced back to make it a neck-and-neck race heading into the free. She ended up squeaking out a tiny advantage and touched just a tenth of a second ahead of Cosgrove, winning the race at 2:03.09 to Cosgrove's 2:03.10.
UCLA resumes Pac-12 competition next week, traveling east to take on the Arizona schools on Friday (Arizona, 2:00 p.m.) and Saturday (Arizona State, 11:00 a.m.). Bruin divers will be competing in those events, marking their first interscholastic competition of the season.
Players Mentioned
