The Pepperdine Waves women’s swim and dive team won the Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference Championships team title for the first time in program history on Feb. 19.
The group won the four-day championships, held in Utah, by more than 100 points.
Pepperdine head coach Ellie Monobe said the Waves showed a lot of grit and are happy to celebrate winning the 15-team event.
“This wouldn’t be possible without the support of our parents and staff,” she said. “Everyone had a role and delivered. This is how championships are won, and it’s good to say we finally did it.”
The Waves swam and dove their way to 1,476.50 total points to finish the spectacle in first place. Cal State East Bay came in second with 1,370 points, and Azusa Pacific University finished third with 930.5 points.
Pepperdine had finished as the runner-up in the last three PCSC Championships. Monobe was named the PCSC Championships Swim Coach of the Meet for the second straight season.
Pepperdine graduate student Kara Coughlin set school records in the 200 and 100-meter backstrokes to lead the Waves. She placed second in the 200 back final with a time of 2 minutes and 01.89 seconds. Coughlin tallied 86 individual points, fifth among female swimmers and first on the Waves.
Freshman Lindsay Hemming placed fourth in the 200 back with her time of 2:04.04. Emily Morton, a senior, was the third in the race with a time of 2:04.11.
Pepperdine’s 400 free relay team—freshman Alexandra Brown and Emma Purdy and juniors Paige Tattersall and Jenna Sanchez—placed second with a time of 3:28.50 in their event final.
Freshman Jessica Calderoni placed fourth in the 200 fly final. Her time was 2:09.06. Senior Olivia Kayye’s time of 2:2.58 placed her eighth in the 200 breast final.
On the first day of the championships, Coughlin, Kayye, Purdy, and Sanchez set a school record in the 200 medley relay final and won the event. Their time was 1:43.94.
Paulina Holmberg, senior, had a Waves’ record score of 271.60 in the 3-meter diving preliminaries also on the opening day of the competition.
Purdy, Sanchez, Brown, and senior McKenzie Kelly set a school record in the 200 free relay of 1:34.24 on the second day of the championships.
Coughlin won the 100 back final and set a Pepperdine record in the event on the third day of competition. She swam the race in 56.17. She also set a school record of 55.58 in the 100-back portion of the 400-medley relay.