BAKERSFIELD, Calif. ? On senior day at the Hillman Aquatics Center, the CSUB men's swim team pulled off thrilling wins in a pair of relay events, while seniors Henry Holmberg and Thomas Peart won individual events as the Roadrunners put up a fight against the reigning NAIA National Champions Cal Baptist Saturday. The visiting Lancers were victorious overall, 161-126.
“I was psyched that Henry and Thomas won some events and if we're going to lose, at least we lost to a good team,” said CSUB Head Coach Chris Hansen. “After training really hard for the past three weeks, we came out strong today. We have some fine tuning to do as we get close to tapering, but our times were good.”
The ?Runners opened the meet with a come-from-behind win in the 400 yard medley relay. Trailing the Cal Baptist “A” squad headed into the final leg, CSUB's anchor Malcolm Reid overtook Lancer anchor Sean McPhearson in the final 25 yards to give the ?Runners a 3:28.86 first-place time. Cal Baptist finished second in 3:29.43.
Holmberg gave CSUB a second-consecutive win, out-swimming the Lancers' Brad Terwiliger in the 1000 free, and touching the wall in 9:37.36. Holmberg also won the 500 free in 4:37.29 and placed third in the 200 free in 1:45.52.
Fellow senior Nathan Vizcarra turned in a personal-best 9:45.02, third place finish in the 1000 free, while Peart won the 100 butterfly in 52.42, just .18 seconds ahead of the Lancers' Ronan Garrec. Another senior, Sampo Sissala, placed second in the 200 free in a season-best time of 1:44.23.
While the CSUB senior class performed well during its final home competition, a number of underclassmen also turned in solid times. Sophomore backstroker Luka Leskur won the 100 back in 51.64 and placed second in the 200 back in 1:51.97. Reid, a junior, was second in both the 50 free (21.82) and the 100 free (47.84) and led off the winning 400 free relay team.
The ?Runners led every leg of the 400 free relay, the day's final event, on their way to a 3:10.06 first place finish. Cal Baptist was second in 3:10.54 after CSUB's Chase Kreitler held off the Lancers' anchor down the stretch.
“It was definitely sad watching the senior swim for the final time here,” said Hansen. “They have really shown the younger guys what it takes.”
Bakersfield travels to UC Davis on Jan. 31, then heads to Stanford and Cal in early February before closing out the season at the Conference USA Championships in Houston Feb. 25-28.
