Anteaters sparkle at Big West championships

UC Irvine diver Anton Slobounov buried the field in men’s 1-meter

diving to claim the Big West Conference championship, racking up

604.90 points as the Anteaters went 1-4-5 in the event in the

conference finals at Belmont Plaza Thursday.

In women’s 3-meter diving, UCI had a 1-2 finish by Melissa Wilmine

and Frannie Brittle. Jennifer Marcus was sixth.

Evan Mitchell (430.90) and Allen Moheimani (321.60) went 4-5 in

the men’s event for UCI.

Also with big efforts in the men’s swimming were Phil Garcia,

Gonny Shimra and Kevin Olson.

Garcia was second in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of

1:38.09.

Shimura was third in the 100 backstroke (50.62) and fourth in the

100 butterfly (50.6). And Olson was third in the 400 individual

medley (4:00.92).

Also with strong swims for the UCI men were Larry Chong (fifth in

the 100 fly at 50.37), Attila Szilagyi (fifth in the 100 breast at

56.97), Keith Ryan (sixth in the individual medley (4:06.45), Robert

Noh (seventh in the 1,000 free (9:35.57), Kareem Adnan (eighth in the

1,000 at 9:39.54), Danny Puchalski (eighth in the individual medley

at 4:16.58) and Brian Kim (eighth in the 100 breast at 59.05).

The men continue in third place with 390 points. The University of

Pacific is the leader with 611.5 points and UC Santa Barbara is

second with 540.5 points with today’s final races upcoming.

In women’s competition, it’s the same team scenario with UOP

(642), UCSB (509) and UCI (458) the leaders after the second of the

three-day meet.

Semah Zavareh was second in the 1,000 free (10:10.48) and Lara

Bjargardottir was third in the 400 individual medley (4:24.22).

Katina Economides and Sara Showalter went 3-4 in the 100 breast

with times of 1:05.70 and 1:05.71.

Megan Walker was fifth in the IM with a 4:29.13, followed by

Cheryl Jennings and Kim Wong, who went 7-8 with times of 4:35.35 and

4:38.75, respectively.

Wong was sixth in the 100 breast (1:06.34) and Kim Do was sixth in

the 100 backstroke (57.50).

The Anteaters went 7-8 in the 1,000 behind Zavareh, Alexia

Sheridan and Codi Jensen going 10:20.02 and 10:27.80, respectively.

Shannon Coskran was eighth in the 100 fly (59.72).