MALIBU, Calif. – Freshman Rachel Cotè won the 100 backstroke title with a time of 56.61 seconds Friday during the third night of competition at the Pacific Coast Swimming Championships taking place at the Belmont Olympic Pool in Long Beach. 

Cotè’s (Honolulu, Hawai’i/Punahou HS) time serves as a personal record and ranks second only to Alison McLeod’s 2006 school record mark of 56.24 on Pepperdine’s list of all-time top performances. Her closest competitor tonight was Alaska Fairbanks’ Mar Brunet, who finished about a half second behind with a time of 57.07.

Cotè’s conference championship is the first of her career and the third won by the Waves this week. Divers Amanda Pond (Wayland, Mass./Wayland HS) and Tiffany Martz (Folsom, Calif./Folsom HS) won the 3-meter and 1-meter springboard titles, respectively, on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

 

Prior to this season, Pepperdine had not claimed three individual winners at a single championship meet since 1988 when Kristen Berryman (1,650 free), Chris Carrauthers (50 free, 100 free and 100 fly) and Bridget Kenehan (1- and 3-meter) combined to win six conference titles.

 

Additionally, Cotè is the first Wave to win a PCSC Championship in the 100 back since Cathy Carone in 1996.

 

Cotè swam the 100 back one more time Friday night as the leadoff leg of the silver-medal winning 400 medley relay, which finished with the program’s fourth-fastest time of 3:53.93. Cotè’s leadoff split was clocked at 57.26. The freshman was joined on this relay by junior Dani Kimmel (Chula Vista, Calif./Eastlake HS), sophomore Francesca Cyphers (Lake Oswego, Ore. (St. Mary's Academy) and senior Haley Wilson (Carpinteria, Calif./Santa Barbara HS).

 

Kimmel, Cyphers and Wilson all scored points in their respective individual races as well.

 

Kimmel beat her own school record of 1:05.16 in the 100 breaststroke with a second-place mark of 1:04.57. Cyphers took sixth in the 100 butterfly with a season best of 58.34 and Wilson placed 21st in the 200 free at 1:58.41.

 

Pepperdine’s deepest event clearly was the 400 individual medley, where six swimmers combined to score 79 points. Freshman Madison Krall (Pueblo, Colo./Pueblo Centennial HS) led the Waves in this race with her fifth-place and personal record time of 4:34.75.

 

Pepperdine currently stands in third place with 783 points after scoring 274 points Friday night. UC San Diego and Loyola Marymount enter Saturday’s final day of competition in a dog fight as the Tritons lead the Lions for the team title by 11 points, 928 to 917.