Reporter
CSU Bakersfield swimming won the last meet of the season against UC Santa Cruz on Saturday, Jan. 27. The men won 213-82 and the women won 215-77. The women started the meet with a win in the first event, the 400 medley relay, and the Roadrunner men kept the streak going.
The meet was bittersweet for the team, as it was the last regular season meet for the seniors.
Chris Hansen, Director of Swimming said the meet would be a fun one and provide a good idea of where the swimmers were with their times going into the Western Athletic Conference Championships in Houston.
“A lot of this meet will help us figure out some WAC events and relays,” said Hanson.
The coaching staff was also going to have swimmers swim events that they normally never swim, just for fun.
In spite of knowing they would be swimming off events, the swimmers had a good attitude going into the meet.
Kristofer Rojc, a freshman from Croatia, participates in the backstroke, 400 individual medley and freestyle said he was looking forward to it.
“I heard there are a lot of people coming here and cheering for us. I’m doing off events, and it’s going to be fun saying our last goodbyes to our captains in the pool,” said Rojc.
Some swimmers were in events they hadn’t swum in years.
Jayssie Haynes, sophomore freestyle and individual medley swimmer, said she wasn’t sure what to expect about her performance for the meet. She said she would be swimming the mile and the last time she had swum it was when she was probably 14 years old.
“I’m kind of nervous to swim it again since I haven’t done it in so long,” said Haynes.
“I was really surprised. I honestly had no idea what was going on during the mile, because I couldn’t see or hear anyone so I was just trying to go for it,” Haynes said.
She touched the wall and looked up to discover she had broken the CSUB record for the women’s mile, with a time of 16:48.91.
Other notable swims for the Roadrunners included freshman Wyatt Subaru’s 500 freestyle.
Subaru threw down a new best time by several seconds of 4:41.76, just beating out his roommate Noah Hultner for the win.
Freshman sprinter Loren Gillilan’s 200 free time of 1:41.06 won the event for the Roadrunners.
Freshman Julio Alcantar had a great meet as well.
Next up for the Roadrunner swimmers and divers is the WAC Championships from Wednesday, Feb. 21 to Saturday, Feb. 24 in Houston, Texas.
