MONTEREY PARK - UC Santa Cruz opened in style at the 2023 Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference Championships.Â
A school record in the men's 800 Free Relay helped give the men the early lead in the conference race.
The men finished with 242 points, 34 points better than second-place Biola. The women are in fourth with 200.5 points, 5.5 points behind third place Biola.
The quartet of
Massimo Reyna,
Briggs Cloutier,
John Madden, and
Samuel Smith won with a time of 6:41.41, 4.2 seconds better than Biola. It was also a new school record, 2.8 seconds better than the mark set in 2009.
Other highlights included
Adam Shaaban placing third in the 1000 Free in 9:44.56, leading a quartet of Banana Slugs in the event as Smith,
Presley Golling, and
Judah Good were fourth, fifth, and sixth respectively. The 200 Medley Relay of
Ethan Porter,
Joseph Guzman,
Aaron Wu, and
Drake Southern placed second in 1:33.86, less than a second behind Biola.
Andrew Keidel and
Joel Akey finished 2-3 in the 1-meter Dive.
For the women,
Coralie Norenberg,
Megan Deevy,
Maddy Gruender, and
Tereza Shea placed fifth in the 200 Medley Relay in 1:48.04. Gruender, Shea,
Piper Stickler and
Emerald Kwang were also fifth in the 800 Free Relay in 7:45.38.
The Championships continue on Thursday starting at 9:30am with preliminaries in the 50 Free, 500 Free and the 200 IM.
