By Andrew Hartley(@andrewhartley) – Spear Reporter
Reka Kovacs competes in the 200-yard butterfly at the Spartan Recreation and Aquatic Center Saturday afternoon against UC Davis. Photo courtesy Andrew Hartley.
The aftermath of the non-conference meet between SJSU(1-2) and UC Davis(3-1) Saturday was a tale of two teams.
While UC Davis danced to Will Smith’s, “Getting Jiggy Wit’ It,” at the 15-minute intermission SJSU gathered in the locker room after losing 182-117.
At the meet’s conclusion, it was time for comments from SJSU swim and dive head coach Sage Hopkins. As he finished pulling out the red, white and blue pool dividers, he was approached about his team’s performance amidst back-to-back 60-plus point blowouts.
Yet for the second consecutive week, Hopkins declined to comment on the team’s performance and continued hauling plastic dividers into the equipment room.
Dual meets have not been the team’s friend to start the year. In their last two meets, the Spartans have only won nine events out of 32 competed in. And that’s generously counting diving events from the UCSB meet where the Gauchos didn’t have a diving team to compete.
Furthermore, sophomore Mya Azzopardi, the anchor of the 400-yard freestyle relay, had a boot on her left leg and did not compete.
However, other sophomores elevated their performances for SJSU amid these losses.
Lais Gasparini E Silva won the 100-yard freestyle and placed second in the 50-yard freestyle scoring 13 points. Amelia Snyder, who hadn’t competed in the 1,000-yard freestyle all year, won the event with a time of 10:21:63.
And unlike the meet a week ago against UC Santa Barbara, the divers got to compete against another team and thankfully.
Sophomore Jenna Jagielski helped SJSU with scores of 318.53 on the three-meter dive and a 291.6 on the one-meter dive. Jagielski single-handedly scored 18 of the Spartans points. Emily San Jose finished third in both events and added on six more points for the team.
The group has been a bright spot and has yet to lose a diving competition this year. Despite only having two events out of the 16, the group made up a fifth of SJSU’s points scored.
It’s the swimmers who have yet to make their impression on the scoreboard.
The Spartans will have one meet left this fall to improve their direction before the winter break. They’ll take part in the Mizzou Invite from Nov. 15-17. They won’t return home again until their final dual meet of the year against CSU East Bay on Jan. 12.