After a week off from competition, the UC Davis women were back in the pool in full force this weekend.
The Aggies competed at the Toshiba Classic in Long Beach, Calif. and swam their way to a 14th-place finish among a field of 25 teams.
The meet featured the defending champion California Golden Bears, along with the perennial powers, UCLA and Stanford, who finished second, third and first, respectively.
“Seeing the caliber of swimmers that they had makes you more aware of the amount of work you have to do,” said coach Barbara Jahn.
With the Aggies aware of the stiff competition, they came out and turned in a strong effort.
A quarter of the Aggies’ 160 overall points were awarded for a strong 800-yard freestyle relay performance.
The Aggie relay team – comprised of Kayleigh Foley, Bridget Bugbee, Katelyn Griffin and Linda Hermann – finished with a time of 7:38.94, good for ninth place.
The squad came in just three hundredths of a second behind host UC San Diego while Stanford took first.
In the 200-meter relay, the Aggie quartet of Ashley Chandler, Jennifer Cadmus, Lisa Bender and Kayleigh Foley finished 10th out of 49 squads.
With their performance, the Aggies’ gain a lot of confidence heading into the remainder of the season as they now know they can compete at the highest level, according to Jahn.
While the Aggies didn’t finish at the top of the field, Jahn believes that the trip was worthwhile, claiming that every single Aggie competitor achieved a season-best time with some clocking career-bests.
The UC Davis women will continue competition on Dec. 3 at the Texas invite in Austin, Tex. The men, who had this weekend off, will join the women in the lone star state next week.
AARON FISCHMAN can be reached at sports@theaggie.org.
