The swimming and diving team dropped its regular season finale 153-147 to Mountain West in-state rival San Jose State Saturday afternoon at the Fresno State Aquatics Center.
In the back-and-forth meet, the Bulldogs held a 143-140 lead heading into the final race but weren’t able to hold off the Spartan relay team of Riley Spitser, Brynne Beneke, Taylor Lehr and Marley Maluafiti in the 400-yard free relay.
The Bulldog relay team of Leah Hatayama, Katelin Britton, Kali Conlon and Tarryn Rennie recorded a time of 3:30.24, just 2.23 seconds behind San Jose State.
“It’s disappointing that we lost the meet,” Bulldogs’ head coach Jeanne Fleck said. “But we swam faster than we’ve ever swam in a dual meet all the way across the board from start to finish. Everybody came with their ‘A’ game.”
Fresno State kicked off the meet with a win in the 200-yard medley relay with the team of Ugne Mazutaityte, Brooke Rodriguez, Tarryn Rennie and Leah Hatayama finishing with a time of 1:44.61.
But San Jose State answered back with wins from Riley Spitser in the 1,000-yard (10:36.65) and 200-yard free (1:51.65) to give the Spartans a 37-18 lead.
The Bulldogs, however, snatched the lead back with wins from Mazutaityte and Brooke Rodriguez in the 100-yard backstroke and 100-yard breaststroke, respectively.
Hatayama pulled off a 50-yard free win with a time of 23.46 to cut San Jose State’s lead to 66-65 heading into the break. The senior then returned with another win, this time in the 100-yard free (51.94).
The ‘Dogs continued the momentum and grabbed a 108-99 lead after taking first place in consecutive events as Mazutaityte and junior Hailee Baldwin took the top spots in in the 200-yard backstroke (2:00.14) and 200-yard breaststroke (2:21.57), respectively.
But the Spartans weren’t done as Spitser brought her team back with a victory in the 500-yard free (5:03.07) over Fresno State’s Casey Kennemann.
Junior Esme Gullick then picked up a 200-yard individual medley win to put Fresno State up by three points heading into the deciding 400-yard free relay.
In total, the Bulldogs recorded nine first place finishes — in one relay and eight individual events.
The ‘Dogs are about two weeks out from the Mountain West Championships, which take place Feb. 17-20 in College Station, Texas.
“We swam our best and we gave them everything we’ve been able to give them,” Fleck said. “We had a great meet. I’m feeling great going into the Mountain West Championships.”