DAVIS, Calif. — While UC Davis might have earned wins in both men's and women's swimming on Friday afternoon against Cal State Bakersfield, it was a memorable day for the Roadrunners women who gave the Aggies all they could handle before falling just short.
UC Davis' men easily defeated the Roadrunners 167-118, but the women just edged Bakersfield 130-112 in a meet that came all the way down to the final relay.
After the meet, women's Head Coach Pat Skehan was thrilled with her team's performance.
“We had a great meet with Davis that came all the way down to the last relay before coming up just short,” Skehan said. “We had them on the run the whole way which is great for our women's program — we've never done that against Davis up here.”
And the result is even more impressive considering that one of the Roadrunners' top swimmers, Simoné Swanepoel, was left home in Bakersfield with a sinus infection.
But the story of the meet had to have been Astrid Amsallem. The Roadrunner freshman from France dominated the Aggies in her three events, and she dominated in impressive fashion.
Amsallem started the day by winning the 1,000 freestyle in 10:24.05, which broke her own school record from earlier this season by nearly 10 seconds and was 24 seconds ahead of the closest Davis competitor. She then came back in the very next event to win the 200 freestyle by nearly two seconds in another season-best time of 1:53.86.
Amsallem finished her day with a third win, this time coming in the 500 freestyle in another season-best time of 5:04.73, which is just three seconds off of the Roadrunner school record held by Loni Burton.
The Roadrunner women won six of the 13 events of the day which kept things incredibly close until the end. In addition to Amsallem's triple, Lexi Kelly and Niki Peck went 1-2 in the 200 butterfly in 2:13.06 and 2:13.60 respectively; Eric Craft came from behind to win the 200 backstroke in 2:11.15; and Emily Bissett won the 1-meter diving competition in 220.95.
In the men's competition, Bakersfield won five of 16 events contested against a strong UC Davis team. The Roadrunners were led by Alexey Belyy, who won two events — the 200 freestyle in 1:44.87, and the 200 individual medley in a season-best 1:56.39.
Other event winners for Bakersfield's men were T.J. Whitacker in the 100 breaststroke (1:00.25); the 400 free relay team of Piotr Gegotek, Filip Zemier, Nathan Vizcarra and Chase Kreiter won in 3:11.20; and Evan Crocker won the 1-meter diving competition at 255.23 and the 3-meter diving competition in 270.15.
The Roadrunners return home on Saturday at 1 p.m. for their final regular-season meet of the year in a dual against Cal Baptist.
