Senior sprinter Tink Gibb and all of the women’s swimming & diving team looks to have their best meet of the year at the PCSC Championships on Feb. 12-15. Courtesy: Chris Baker
The Azusa Pacific swimming and diving team competed in its final regular season meet Saturday, Feb. 1 against Biola and Concordia. The meet wrapped up a season in which the Cougars won two out of five Pacific Collegiate Swimming and Diving Conference contests. The team also had several top-place finishes in four invitationals: Malibu, Mustang, Orange County and Winter.
The Winter Invitational saw several Cougar swimmers put up season-best times. Senior sprinter Tink Gibb set a new school standard in the 50 fly with a 26.65 split, and freshman freestyle and distance swimmer Sydney Bello also put up a year’s top mark of 1:58.22 in the 200 free.
With the regular season coming to an end, the Cougars are looking forward to the PCSC Championships Feb. 12-15 in La Mirada. According to head coach Tim Kyle, the work that has been put in all season comes down to the PCSC Championships.
“This year it’s our cap, it’s what we’re geared towards, so we’re trying to do the best we can at this meet,” Kyle said. “It’s a pretty strong meet. There [are] some very talented teams that are in our conference. We have Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA schools in our conference — there are 13 teams in our conference — so it’s pretty large. This is our biggest meet, so we’re going to try and represent the best we can.”
For Gibb, the season so far has been all about putting years of hard work into her last collegiate season.
“I have been swimming since I was 5,” Gibb said. “I’ve had goal times that I wanted to reach, so coming into the season I wanted to reach those goal times and break as many school records as possible.”
Other swimmers who had a great deal of success this season are freshman Brooke Miller and junior Ingrid Cardenas, who have both put up top season marks in multiple events.
“I just wanted to do my best and help out the team any way I could. I have one more year after this, so my main focus was just being there for the team and being there where I’m needed so we could get the most points,” Cardenas said.