Oct. 24, 2003
Bakersfield, Calif. - The season opener for the Gaucho men didn't go as well as the team was hoping. Facing Cal State Bakersfield, who was coming off of a strong showing at the UOP Invitational last weekend, the Gauchos hoped to start the season off with a mark in the win column. Things don't always go as planned, however. Despite a well swam individual portion of Friday's meet versus CSU Bakersfield, UCSB couldn't make up the deficit posed by losses in both of the relay events. The Roadrunners of Bakersfield edged out the Gauchos 134.5-127.5 winning the meet in the final event, the 400 freestyle relay.
The first event of the meet, the 200 medley relay, set the stage for the final outcome. In the event, the Gauchos were out-touched by a margin of 15 hundredths of a second. The rest of the meet went quite well for the Gauchos with freshmen Pat Cary and Brendan Lee both winning two events each. Cary's wins came in the 100 and 200 butterflies (51.19, 1:52.20) while Lee took control of the breastroke events winning the 100 in an impressive early season time of 57.87. Sophomore Patrick Ota won the 100 backstroke (50.53) for the Gauchos solidifying his place as the team's top sprint backstroker.
While the Gauchos managed to succeed in the stroke events they suffered in the freestyle unable to record wins in any of the events. The distance events were a tough win for the Gauchos with Roadrunner freshman Greg Mroz winning both the 500 and 1000 freestyles for his team. Freshman Brent Nolan finished a close second to Mroz in the 1000 recording a 9:28.61 while sophomore Garrett Porteous' 4:38.42 fell two seconds short of Mroz's winning time in the 500. Gaucho sprinters, perhaps hindered by the absence of senior Ryan Dingler, were overcome by those of CSU Bakersfield.
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Dingler's presence was definitely needed in the last event the 400 freestyle relay, which was the deciding event of the meet. Going in, both teams knew that only a win could seal a victory in the point standings. The Roadrunners managed to lead the whole race and at times the margin between first and second was a little over a second. The Roadrunner anchor however pulled away from the Gauchos and sealed the meet. This loss was a tough one for the Gauchos but surely they will be able to pull many good things away from it.
