Four school records by women's swimming highlight La Verne Winter Invite

Friday, November 19

East L.A. College

UC Santa Cruz Athletics

La Verne Invite

The fastest Slugs in the pool- record setting relay

(L-R) Gruender, Kwang, Shea and Blue set two school relay records at La Verne Winter Invite (photo by E. Lundgren)

Four school records by women's swimming highlight La Verne Winter Invite

11/20/2021 4:44:00 PM | Women's Swim and Dive, Men's Swim and Dive

Swim and Dive teams' close Fall season with best meet in recent memory

MONTEREY PARK- The men's and women's swimming teams closed the Fall half of their season at the La Verne Winter Invite held at East L.A. College.

Sophomore Maddy Gruender had a huge weekend, setting two school records and being part of two record-setting relays. She opened the meet Friday morning breaking the school record in the 500 Free, finishing the ten laps in an outstanding 5:00.32. That time was 2.64 seconds better than Stephanie Miller's school record that had stood since 2004. Gruender finished 6th in the evening A final, with Aly Roberts coming in 8th in 5:13.17. Sachiko Correa was 7th in the 1-M diving (185.45 pts).
Friday evening, Gruender teamed with Isobel Blue, Emerald Kwang, and Tereza Shea to break the school 200 Free Relay that had stood since 1996, finishing in 1:36.72. The time was good for 3rd place after Div. I San Diego and DII Simon Fraser.
Saturday, Gruender made history again as she broke the school record in the 200 Free, swimming 1:51.76 in the preliminaries to break former All-American Kara Holzworth's mark set in 2004. Later on Saturday, she placed fourth in the A Final.
She saved the best for last, teaming with the same crew Sunday night to help break the school 4x100 Free Relay record in 3:31.22 for a 4th place finish.
Vivi Raker was 7th in the 200 Fly in 2:10.33.
Gruender achieved 'B' cuts for the NCAA Championship in both her individual record-setting events.

On the men's side, Joel Akey and Marshall Hintze finished 1-2 in the 3-meter Diving event. Several Banana Slugs made the A Final of their events. John Madden was 3rd in 500 Free in 4:38.81, and Sam Smith was 5th in 4:39.87.
On Saturday Joe Guzman was 4th in the 100 Breaststroke in 57.67, while Ethan Porter was 5th in the 100 Back in 53.70, followed by Akira Morita (53.87), Sanjay Shrikanth (54.39), and Brandon Le (54.46).