A long layoff seemed to be exactly what the UCSB swim and dive team needed as they completed dual meet sweeps of UC San Diego and Cal Poly this past weekend at Campus Pool. Back in the pool for the first time in three weeks, the men defeated the Tritons 170-128 and Cal Poly 191-107, while the women won 178-122 against UCSD and 167-133 versus the Mustangs.

“It was actually a real good [weekend],” Head Coach Gregg Wilson said. “We challenged the kids. [UC San Diego and Cal Poly] are two good teams … I’m very pleased with how the men and women swimmers did overall.”

With the dual meet sweeps, the men’s team rebounds from its opening-meet loss and improves to 2-1. The women move to 4-1.

In the Blue-Green rivalry against Cal Poly on Saturday, the first two events of the meet set the tone for the Gauchos, as both the men and women were able to take first place in the 200-yard medley relay. From there, it was complete domination from Santa Barbara, as the men and women combined for a total of 26 wins out of 32 events on the day.

Despite being fatigued from competing the day before, the Gauchos still delivered standout performances. Most notably, junior Sophia Yamauchi won the 100-yard backstroke and 500-yard freestyle, and sophomore Carissa Metcalf swept the 100- and 200-yard breaststroke. Freshmen Josh Smith, Andy Castilleja and Mickey Mowry each took away two individual first-place finishes in the meet as well.

“It was tough swimming on back-to-back days,” senior co-captain Andrew Latimer said. “We worked on the first meet and once we took care of that, then we worked on the second meet and went after Cal Poly. I think the [team] did a real nice job of coming back the second day.”

On Friday’s home opener, the Gauchos were careful not to underestimate a tough UC San Diego squad. Despite being a Division II team, the Tritons were much improved from last year. UCSB got on the board quickly, sweeping the 200-yard medley relay, with the women finishing in first and second place as well.

“It definitely does [set the tone] when we win the first relay; it gets the ball rolling,” senior co-captain Emma Hunt said. “Going one-two in that first relay … it set a higher tone for the meet.”

Taking first place in six of its next eight events, the early deficit proved too much for the Tritons to overcome, and UCSB sealed the victory in the last competition when the women won the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:36.23 and the men’s “A” team edged out the “B” team by three-tenths of a second in 1:24.49.

In total, Santa Barbara won 23 out of 32 events and had five swimmers win multiple individual events.

UCSB’s next event is the Arena Invitational in Long Beach starting Nov. 15.