BYU women’s swim and dive fell to the University of California with a score of 158-118 at the Richards Building pool on Friday night.
California is last year’s defending NCAA champion, with Olympic swimmers Rachel Bootsma, who won the gold medal in the 400 medley relay, and Caitlin Leverenz, who took bronze in the 200 individual medley, on the team.
“There was some good racing today,” Terri Mckeever, Head Coach of Cal, said in a press release. “It was good to compete against a new team.”
This was the first time in 14 years that BYU has competed in a dual meet with Cal since their loss in 1998, when Cal won 162-143.
“It’s an honor to have one of the fastest teams in the country come to BYU and race us,” Head Coach John Brooks said after the meet last night. “We hope they feel welcome to come again.”
Brooks said the team went through some rough training during the week and was impressed how the women swam against Cal.
In the first race of the night, Hailey Campbell, Kassandra Bispo, Kimberly Welch Doroghian and Taryn Toolson Lewis placed second in a close 200 medley relay, with Toolson Lewis touching the wall just one-hundredth of a second behind Cal with a time of 1:44.79.
“I thought the meet went pretty well,” Campbell said. “We were all kind of nervous throughout the week, but we also sat down as a team and had a team meeting about it and said, you know, it’s an honor that their coming to swim us because it’s not every day you get to swim NCAA champions or Olympians.”
Campbell went on to place second in the individual 100 back with a time of 57.12, which she claimed was likely her fastest time for this altitude.
In the 100 breast Bispo and Londyn Clawson finished in second and third respectively, within close to a second of each other.
Brooks praised Clawson for her times, along with Angela Bennion and Alia Welsh, for racing well in the face of competition despite some tough workouts this week.
Welsh placed fourth in the 200 free with a time of 1:55.56, with Bennion finishing close behind at 1:57.98. Bennion then went on to finish the 100 free with a time of 53.69 .
In diving Dayna Christensen took first in the 1 and 3 meter, with Raleigh Williams Taylor in second on both boards as well.
Next week the women will join with the men’s team and will head to Nevada to compete against UNLV on Nov. 3.
