Usually, college students residing in Utah can only make it down to San Diego once a year-if they're lucky. Before this weekend, the women of the Ute swim team had already made two trips to San Diego, coming away with victories on both occasions. The outcome of their third and final visit of the season to San Diego proved to be no different as the Ute women won four of five relay events in the UCSD Relay Invitational over the weekend.
Shannon McQueen helped lead the team to two of those four victories in the 600 backstroke and 500 freestyle events.
In the 600 backstroke, Marissa Martin and Beth Gunderson teamed up with McQueen, and the three finished well ahead of the competition with a time of 6:27.98.
McQueen also joined forces with Annie VanLeeuwen and senior standouts Ali McInturff and Amber Walter, and McQueen anchored the quartet to a win in the 500 freestyle relay with a time of 4:41.97.
The Utes also came away with victories in the 600 butterfly and the 600 breast stroke-which they won by a mere seven-tenths of a second-to capture a victory in all four swimming strokes.
The Ute men, who were making their second trip of the season to San Diego, also fared well as they collected wins in three of the five relay races.
The backstroke trio of Adam Oliver, David Johnson and Andrew Cole took home first place in the 600 backstroke with relative ease as the only other non-Ute school competing in the race was disqualified during the race.
Cole also helped lead the Utes to a win in the 300 medley relay with a time of 2:45.47.
Marco Ferraro-who has proven himself a very capable distance freestyle swimmer as of late-anchored the team, which included Matt Bailey, David Maasberg and George Evans. The four swimmers combined for a time of 4:03.69, which was good enough for first place in the 500 freestyle relay.
"It has been a great week of training for us over the holiday break," assistant coach Ron Lockwood said. "Both teams swam well and we look forward to the season starting up again."
The five divers that make up the Utah Diving team traveled down to Athens, Ga., to compete in the prestigious Georgia Diving Invitational. There, Kelsey Patterson continued to etch her name in stone as one of the best female divers ever to wear a U bathing suit.
Patterson placed first in the three-meter diving event with a score of 286.75. Patterson also took home a seventh-place finish in the one-meter diving event.
Now that the holidays have come and gone, the Ute swimmers will set their sights on their respective Mountain West title hopes. The Utes will only face MWC opponents from here on out and those hopes will start on the road, as the Utes will be away from the U Natatorium for the next three weeks before enjoying a three-game home stand to round out the regular season.
First on the list for the Utes will be a trip to Fort Worth to take on the Horned Frogs of TCU on Jan. 13.
The next home meet for the Utes will be against Wyoming on Jan. 26.
