MALIBU, Calif. – Pepperdine’s swimming and diving team heads to UCI Irvine this weekend for the Anteater Shootout.
The two-day event held at the Anteater Aquatics Complex will feature 12 schools (eight men’s teams and 11 women’s teams) competing in two separate dual meets in two different pools. The meet begins at noon Friday and again Saturday at 10 a.m.
Pepperdine begins competition in the same pool against #3 Stanford, Cal Poly, Hawai’i, Idaho and the host institution. If the Waves emerge as one of the top three teams following Friday’s events, they’ll move on Saturday to face the top three schools from a group that includes UC Davis, UNLV, BYU, Cal State Northridge and San Diego.
The Cougars and Rebels received votes in the latest CollegeSwimming.com dual meet poll.
“This will be one of the toughest competitions of the season,” Pepperdine head coach Nick Rodionoff said. “But it’s going to be good for us and we have a couple swimmers with high seeds in a number of events. We’ve had success over the last two meets, but now it’s time to see if we can compete against some Olympic-quality competition.”
Freshman Rachel Cote (Honolulu, Hawai’i/Punahou School) and junior Dani Kimmel (Chula Vista, Calif./Eastlake HS) are both seeded high in three events.
Cote is the meet’s #3 seed in the 100 backstroke at 57.09 and is eighth in the 50 freestyle with a mark of 24.22.
Kimmel is a top-10 seed in the 50 free (9th, 24.2) and 100 breaststroke (4th, 1:05.43).
Also receiving high seeds are sophomore Kayleen Hicks (Chico, Calif./Chico HS), who is third in the 100 breast at 1:05.17, senior Haley Wilson (Carpinteria, Calif./Santa Barbara HS), seeded 12th for the 100 free with a 53.44 , and sophomore Francesca Cyphers (Lake Oswego, Ore./St. Mary's Academy), ranked 10th in the 100 fly at 58.92.
This weekend also will prove challenging to the divers, which have yet to face an elite group of competitors. The Waves had an easy go of it two weeks ago at their home Malibu Invitational, where they swept the top-five spots in a combined 1-/3-meter six-dive competition led by freshman Kristin Scribner’s (Bonney Lake, Wash./Bonney Lake HS) score of 209.05 points.
Two weeks prior to the Malibu Invite at the PCSC Pentathlon, Pepperdine divers finished second and third on 1-meter and claimed six of the top-10 scores on 3-meter.
At the PCSC Relays pair-diving competition, in which two divers from the same team competed together to post a cumulative total, Pepperdine’s tandems swept the top-three spots off both springboards. Both times it was the Wave duo of Tiffany Martz (Folsom, Calif./Folsom HS) and Shannon Hedman (Fair Oaks, Calif./Loretto HS) that came through with the highest scores of 392.40 (1-meter) 388.55 (3-meter).
