LOS ANGELES – Competing against a crop of top-tier opponents for the entirety of the weekend, the FGCU swimming & diving team concluded its West Coast swing by defeating four out of their five opponents Saturday afternoon at UCLA's Spieker Aquatics Center.

Among those four opponents, the Eagles suffered a hard-fought loss to #19 UCLA (133-104), but soared past defending Mountain Pacific Sports Federation champ UC Davis (133-109), San Diego (175-65), UC Santa Barbara (157.5-72.5) and Oregon State (163-67).

"It's great to come away from the weekend with four wins," said FGCU head coach Dave Rollins. "Today's racing presented a new set of challenges as the unique format meant you were not just racing the people in your heat, but our girls did great to overcome the challenges. It's great to get four wins against a top-20 program like UCLA. We still have some details we need to clean up and some tweaking to do with our race strategies, which we will continue to work on the next couple of weeks. We'd like to thank our host UCLA for putting on the meet and wish the best of luck to everyone this season."

To start out the meet, the FGCU quartet of Fanny Teijonsalo (Espoo, Finland/Makelanrinteen Lukio), Evita Leter (Paramaribo, Suriname/Doral Academy), Christina Kaas Elmgreen (Charlottenlund, Denmark/Ordrup Gymnasium) and Katie Latham (Deal, Kent, UK/Sir Roger Manwood's School) not only touched first in the 400 medley relay, but also set a season-best time by more than three seconds.

In the individual events, Kaas Elmgreen and Latham both dominated as they each finished first in their individual races of the 200 fly (2:00.45) and the 50 free (23.21). Latham's mark in the sprint free was good for a new season best.

Later in the meet, Hannah Burdge (Stauart, Fla./Martin County HS) followed Latham's performance in the short sprint free with a solid performance of her own in the longer sprint free as she touched that pads in 51.48 seconds and finished in second place. Teammate Barbara Caraballo (Ponce, Puerto Rico/Indian River CC/Newsome HS) finished third in the 200 back for the second straight day as she clocked a time of 2:02.63.

To cap off the swimming portion of the weekend, FGCU's 200 free relay team of Caraballo, Kiley Eble (Cleveland, Ohio/Gilmour Academy), Leter and Yee Ching Wong Hong Kong, China/Diocesan Girl's School) saw their teammates gets disqualified from the race but swam strong to earn the Green and Blue a third-place finish in the event with a time of 1:35.86.

On the diving end, Ashley Wright performed well for the second straight night as she finished runner-up off the 3-meter board with a score of 273.60 and third in the 1-meter event with a season-best score of 268.20. Her score off the short board not only ranks ninth in program history, but also qualifies her for the 2017 NCAA Zone Diving Qualifications. 

Meet Results
FGCU 133, UC Davis 109
FGCU 175, USD 65
UCLA 133, FGCU 104
FGCU 157.5, UCSB 72.5
FGCU 163, OSU 67
UC Davis 179, USD 63
UCLA 149, UC Davis 88
UCLA 165.5, USD 70.5
UC Davis 153, UCSB 83
UCSB 136, USD 94
UCLA 165, UCSB 66
UC Davis 184, OSU 52
USD 120, OSU 110
UCLA 166, OSU 65
UCSB 129, OSU 75

The Eagles return to Fort Myers to prepare for a week before hosting in-state rival FSU, Florida Southern and West Florida for a quad meet at the FGCU Aquatics Center Friday, Nov. 4 and Saturday, Nov. 5.
 
FOLLOW ALONG
For up-to-date coverage of FGCU women's swimming and diving, follow us on Twitter @FGCU_WSWIM and visit www.FGCUAthletics.com where full recaps and results will be available.
 
HEAD COACH DAVE ROLLINS
First-year head coach Dave Rollins became the program's second head coach in program history on Sept. 1. Most recently the associate head men's swimming coach at The Ohio State University, Rollins brings 10 years of coaching experience at the club, high school and collegiate levels. A standout collegiate athlete in his own right, Rollins was a nine-time NCAA All-American and national champion as a member of the University of Arizona swimming & diving team from 2002-06. 
                                                                        
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FGCU Athletics sponsors events throughout the year to benefit the FGCU Campus Food Pantry (www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry) and the Harry Chapin Food Bank (www.harrychapinfoodbank.org), FGCU Athletics' charities of choice. For more information, including how to make a contribution, please visit www.fgcu.edu/foodpantry and utilize the hashtag #FeedFGCU to help raise awareness.