Race Results | Team Results
OAKLAND, Calif. – The Cal State East Bay swimming team won all but one women's event to top five teams at the Bay Area Invitational in Oakland on Saturday. The Pioneers scored 721.5 points to beat out second-place UC Santa Cruz by over 100 points and picked up their second meet victory of the season.
“Even without an injured
Jenel Lopez, we were able to beat out five other teams today,” Head Coach
Ben Loorz said. “A lot of different people stepped up to perform, with winners coming from all corners of the team. We outpaced local rival UCSC by over 100 points, which was nice.”
The Pioneer relay teams were a key factor in the meet victory. East Bay opened the meet with a first and third finish in the 400 medley relay, led by the team of
Bethany Hoopman,
Courtney Schwiesow,
Alyssa Tenney and
Alyssa Littlefield. Later in the meet, East Bay posted one-two finishes in both the 800 free relay and the 200 free relay, with the two 800 relay teams finishing within one second of each other.
“We 'split' our 800 free relay teams, meaning that we seeded both of them to be roughly the same speed, and that indeed ended up being the case – they finished within a second of each other,” Loorz said. “This relay is the 'hard-working team's' relay, and for us to push each other to identical finishes was fun and rewarding.”
Among the individual highlights from the meet were
Alyssa Tenney's pair of impressive victories in the 200 backstroke and the 400 individual medley and
Caitlin DeNise's hat trick in the 100 backstroke, 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly. DeNise led a one-two-three finish for the Pioneers in the 100 back, while Tenney claimed a nine-second victory in the 200 back.
The Pioneers were particularly dominant in the breaststroke taking six of the top seven spots in the 100 and four of the top five in the 200, with Schwiesow and
Rachel Knowles picking up the victories in the 100 and 200, respectively.
Among the other individual winners for the Pioneers were
Karly Wasung, who picked up her first win of the season in the 100 freestyle,
Hannah Cutts, who claimed first by more than 15 seconds in the 500 free and was the runner up in the 1650 free, and
Rachel Shimizu, who topped Cutts by 30 seconds in the 500 free.
“East Bay only lost one event today, and overall it was a solid performance as we gear up for powerful conference rivals Cal Baptist and Alaska Fairbanks over the next two weeks,” Loorz said. “I was very pleased with how we raced and am also excited that our gutsyness will continue to be tested to a greater degree in the weeks to come.”
Cal State East Bay returns to action next weekend when it takes on Cal Baptist and Redlands in a tri-meet in Riverside on Nov. 3.
