From Feb. 14 to Feb. 17, both the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams competed at the UAA Championship meet in Chicago, Illinois. The four-day meet was this season’s University Athletic Association (UAA) championship meet. It was hosted by the University of Chicago (UChicago), and attended by New York University (NYU), Emory University, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Washington University in Saint Louis (WashU), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the University of Rochester (UofR) and Brandeis.
On the first day of this four-day long meet, Brandeis’ teams set two school records. In the 800-yard freestyle relay’s lead leg, Chloe Gonzalez ’25 set a record time of 1:54.57 that propelled her, Maya Haubrich ’24, Becca Kaplan ’26 and Jenna Wild ’26 to eighth place in the event. Sam Dienstag ’24 also set a school record in his 200-meter leg of the 800-meter relay, with his time of 1:39.43 leading the relay squad of Benjamin Lee ’26, Riley Pasicaran ’27 and Tal Spector ’25 to an eighth place finish. Outside of the school-record-setting relay teams, Josie Kearns ’27 placed 24th in the one-meter dive. Additionally, Wild moved onto Brandeis’ top-10 all-time list with her 5:20.40 in the 500-meter freestyle obtaining her ninth place all time. Gonzalez also moved into the top-10, with her time of 24.73 in the 50-meter freestyle netting her fourth place all time.
On the second day of the meet, Dienstag took the first seed in the 500-meter freestyle preliminary race, and swam a time of 4:27.36. Later, in the finals, he swam the same race in a time of 4:25.83, setting a school record and becoming Brandeis’ first UAA conference champion in nearly 20 years. His performance was the sixth UAA championship that Brandeis’ men’s swim and dive teams have earned. Monica Iizuka ‘24 also competed in the second day’s B final races. She was the 13-seed in the preliminary 50-meter freestyle race, and swam a time of 24.37 in the final race. This time was good for second all time in Brandeis’ record books.
On the third day of action, Iizuka made the B final for the 100-meter backstroke, where she swam a time of 58.15 and received 15th place. Eva Parson ’25 came 19th in the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:10.38 and Audrey Teo ’26 came right behind her in 20th with a time of 1:10.59. Both Judges qualified for the C finals with their efforts. Pasicaran also had a scoring performance in the 100-meter backstroke, where he swam a time of 54.27 in the preliminary race and 54.37 in the finals, good for 22nd place. Kearns placed in the 3-meter diving event, with a score of 333.55 which netted her 22nd place. Gonzalez nabbed another top-10 spot with her time of 1:56.03 in the 200-meter freestyle and Anastasia Bekoi ’25 did the same with a time of 59.82 in the 100-meter butterfly.
On the fourth and final day of the UAA championship meet, Dienstag netted his third All-UAA honor and finished second in the 1650-meter freestyle race. In this mile-long race he set a time of 15:36.71, and his performance here was only 11 seconds shy of the school record he previously set. Additionally, Kaplan and Wild came 22nd and 23rd in the mile freestyle with times of 18:32.81 and 18:33.82, while Iizuka grabbed 24th place with a time of 2:09.66 in the 200-meter backstroke.
All told, the Judges finished in eighth place at the meet with 393 points, 116 points behind the 7th place University of Rochester team.
Next up, both the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams will travel to Greensboro, North Carolina, to compete in the NCAA championship meet from March 20 to March 23.
