By James Bates
The BYU men”s and women”s swimming and diving teams placed second and fourth, respectively, at the Speedo Cup hosted by UC-Irvine in Long Beach, Calif., this weekend.
The only team to finish in front of the 19th-ranked men”s team was No. 3 Stanford. The Cougars had a total of 1012 points, while the Cardinal built a huge lead after the first day of the tournament and ended up dominating the competition with 1885.
The BYU men did, however, win the 400-free relay with a time of 3:01.16 and had two swimmers, Zach Anderson and Mark Chay, finish second in their individual events.
Last week before the Speedo Cup, Chay was named the MWC Men”s Swimmer of the Week for winning two individual events at the Cougars” meet last weekend in South Bend, Ind. In that competition, the BYU men defeated Notre Dame and Louisville, but fell to Iowa.
The BYU women, who started the last day of competition in sixth place, ended up vaulting over MWC rivals Colorado State and Air Force to finish fourth. They came in behind Oregon State, UC San Diego and UC Irvine with a total score of 704.5 points.
“Our back strokers and breast strokers swam good today and our freestylers were real good,” said women”s head coach Stan Crump in a news release. “And we had a good relay to close the meet.”
Three weeks ago, freshman Brittany Davis won the MWC Women”s Swimmer of the Week after her performance against San Diego State, and she had another impressive showing at the Speedo Cup. She placed third in the 200 back with a time of 2:00.17; while her teammate Natasha Schlup came in close behind her in fifth.
The BYU women hadn”t competed since their victory over San Diego State, while the men were coming off an impressive 2-1 record in the competition in Indiana last weekend.
Both teams will rest this week while they prepare for competition in the first part of December. The men will next compete in the U.S. Open, which will take place Dec. 4-6 in Seattle, Wash. The women”s team will compete in Provo on Dec. 5-6 in the BYU Diving Invitational.
