On Friday, January 5th the CUI women got their first meet of 2024 out of the way with a tough match up with defending MWC champs, the D1 SDSU Aztecs and the NCAA DII top-20 ranked Pioneers from our own PCSC Conference. Swimming for the first time at the SDSU pool, the CUI women performed extremely well while in the midst of winter training.  

The Golden Eagles dropped the contests to SDSU (114.5-135) and CSEB (158-104), but won seven of 16 events against CSEB.

Alex Leland won the 100-200 breaststrokes as well as the breaststroke leg on the victorious 200 medley relay (with Aubrie Carver, Georgia Caraway and Hailey Garcia).  Her 2:29.44 is her season best and moves her up into the top-15 in the conference. The relay time of 1:49.44 is a solid in-season swim.

Also snagging a pair of wins were freshmen Rachel Maki (500-1000 free) and Carissa Ward (200 back, 200 IM).    

Alice Stainer was touched out for a gold in the 200 free by 1/10th of a second with a really good effort at 1:57.29 and Caraway was 2nd in the 100 butterfly (59.60) and 3rd in the 100 back (1:00.41).

"The women went into this day with some apprehension," said head coach, Bert Bergen. "I think they learned a lot about themselves today. These are excellent teams and ones we don't normally see. We raced well, had tremendous enthusiasm and battled through a lot of fatigue. It was a really good experience and they should feel good about what we experienced. We have work ahead of us but we can swim in the big leagues and today showed it.    

Both teams train for another day in San Diego before heading home to start the second semester and get ready to host the OC Invitational on January 13 at the Woollett Aquatic Center.

For the Spring 2024 Swim and Dive Schedule CLICK HERE