SAN DIEGO - The UC San Diego swimming and diving squads competed against their first Division I opponents of the 2009-10 season, as UCSD, Texas Christian, Idaho and host San Diego State challenged each other in dual meets on the Aztecs' campus. In the only official men's meet of the day, UCSD fell to TCU, 157.5-123.5. On the women's side, the Tritons topped Idaho, 176-118, but dropped respective decisions of 184-94 and 179-119 to SDSU and TCU.
"It was an up and down day for us," UCSD head coach Scott McGihon said. "Our team knows that. There were some things that I liked and then there were some things that made you wonder. In particular, I was impressed with our distance swimmers today."
For the Triton women, junior Anju Shimura put together solid performances in the backstroke events. She placed second both the 100 and 200 yard events, posting respective marks of 58.42 and 2:06.82. UCSD sophomore Alex Henley took third place in the 200 individual medley at 2:10.05 and finished fourth in the 200 free with a time of 1:53.63.
The combination of Katherine Tse, Shea Kopp, Jessica Ferguson and Shimura placed second in the 400 free relay, posting a 3:33.27 mark that ended up 0.56 off the winning group from TCU. Tse, a freshman out of Monterey Park, Calif., also shined in the 50 free with a 24.61 second-place finish. Fellow first-year, Beth Dong, took more than four seconds off her 1000 time that she recorded at the season-opening meet against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps to placed third in the event Friday and today's mark ranks first among Division II times from across the U.S.
On the men's side, Jereme Barnett-Woods, a senior transfer from the University of Washington, starred in the distance events. He finished first in both the 500 and 1000 free races, crossing the line with respective times of 4:40.46 and 9:35.43. Based on times from around the country heading into today, Barnett-Woods' time in the 500 ranks first in Division II.
"That performance by Jereme was by far the best race we saw out of our team today," McGihon said.
Other top performers for the Tritons in their races against TCU were Daniel Perdew and Juan Pablo Carrillo. Perdew placed second in the 50 free at 21.36, 0.15 behind the winner. Carrillo also took second-place, finishing the 100 yard breaststroke in 57.53.
In diving, UCSD had two second-place finishers on the men's side. Freshman Tyler Runsten put together a score of 265.75 in the one-meter event while sophomore Patrick Cohen recorded a 235.25 mark in the three-meter.
