Jan. 3, 2009
Sprint Invitational Results
Distance Invitational Results
NORTHRIDGE, Calif. - The Cal State Northridge Swimming teams opened up the new year in Irvine as each respective squad faced some of the top swimming programs on the West Coast in the UC Irvine/Ayres Invitational.
The Matadors squared off against Brigham Young, Concordia-Irvine, Pepperdine, UCLA, UC Irvine, UCLA, and Wyoming in two separate competitions; the Matador women finished in seventh place, with the men securing a fourth place finish in the Sprint Invitational, with a fifth and third place finish by the women and men respectively in the Distance Invitational.
In the Sprint portion of the event, Hank Weinberger turned in the best performance of either team as he swam a 25.53 in the 50 Backstroke, narrowly missing the top spot amongst all other swimmers. Weinberger also finished in fifth place in the 200 Backstroke with a time of 1:59.58, and a seventh-place finish in the 100 Backstroke (55.02).
Chris Grafton also turned in a strong performance as he finished in 12th place against a deep and talented field in the 100 Freestyle (49.20), and 18th out of 48 swimmers in the 200 Freestyle.
Turning in solid times in both the 100 and 200 Backstroke events was Jimmy Rogers as he finished in 13th and seventh place with respective times of 56.30 and 2:01.81.
Clark Henson posted the fastest times for the Matadors in the 50 and 100 Breaststroke events as his time of 28.22 was good enough for a ninth place finish in the 50, and a seventh place finish in the 100 (1:01.39).
On the women's side Simone Luker, Bethany Scamara, and Olesya Senicheva turned in some of the strongest times of the afternoon.
Luker finished in seventh place in the 200 Breaststroke (2:31.04), while Scamara finished amongst the top swimmers in both the 100 Freestyle and 200 Individual Medley with her respective times of 55.99 and 2:17.80.
Senicheva made a name for herself in both Butterfly events as she finished in 11th place with her 1:01.16 performance in the 100, and a time of 2:12.99 in the 200 which secured her an eighth place finish. Her strongest performance of the day took place in the 200 Individual Medley as she narrowly missed the top-three with her fifth place time of 2:12.96.
In the Distance competition, Matt Sulkevich wrapped up first place in the 1000 Freestyle as he finished a whopping 22 seconds ahead of the next swimmer with his impressive time of 10:06.48.
The trio of Senicheva, Scamara, and Luker dotted the top-half of the leaderboard in the 400 Indidivual Medley with their 14th, 20th, and 25th-place respective finish, with Megan Meadows posting the best time of the day for the Matador women in the 1650 Freestyle with her time of 18:33.15.
