Jan. 7, 2016
San Jose, Calif. --- Competing at home for the first time this season, the San Jose State swimming team focus on the fine details as the Spartans face the Cal State East Bay Pioneers in dual on Saturday, January 9, at the Aquatic Center.
"At this point with where we are in the season, most of the hay is in the barn, so to speak in terms of their work. We're just looking to refine things to get better and faster from day to day," said San Jose State Head Coach Sage Hopkins.
The Spartans boasts a 5-2 dual meet record this season with fourth place finishes at the Pacific Invitational to start the season and the A3 Performance Invitational in November. The team finished fourth out of 14 squads at the A3 Invitational.
"I think they are in a very good space right now, mentally and emotionally, confidence and performance wise. We had some great swims over this past week," Hopkins said.
Picking up two out of three wins in a four-way dual on Sunday, January 3, San Jose State beat UC San Diego and Incarnate Word and lost to Mountain West Conference opponent San Diego State. The Spartans followed up the four-way meet with scrimmage on Tuesday. "Our scrimmage with Boise State and San Diego State went well," Hopkins said.
"What we expect is that people will be better from where we were on this last road trip," Hopkins said. "Every time they step up on the block, from here forward, we want them to be a little bit better and more refined."
San Jose State has gathered three NCAA B Standard provisional qualifying times this season, two by sophomore Colleen Humel and the third by senior distance swimmer Riley Spitser.
Humel swam provisional times at the A3 Invitational in the 100 backstroke, with a time of 54.27, and the 200 backstroke, with a mark of 1:57.53. Spitser met the provisional qualifying mark in the 500 freestyle at the A3 Invitational with a time of 4:46.64, only 00.54 seconds off her career best.
Junior Taylor Solorio leads San Jose State with the season best times in the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke with senior Brynne Beneke has the top time in the 50 freestyle. In the butterfly events, sophomore Brenna Bushey holds the top stop in the 100-yard butterfly and freshman Marley Maluafiti leads the 200-yard butterfly.
Cal State East Bay is 3-1 in dual competition, beating the Alaska Nanooks in back-to-back wins and Mills College.
by Brian S. Stanley, SJSU athletics media relations student assistant