The University of British Columbia Athletics

EDMONTON – For a second consecutive season the UBC Thunderbirds have claimed the conference team title in both men's and women's competition at the 2012 Canada West swimming championships, hosted Friday through Sunday by the University of Alberta the Kinsmen Aquatic Centre in Edmonton.

DAY ONE RECAP

DAY TWO RECAP

DAY THREE RECAP

DAY THREE RESULTS

CANADA WEST MEET RECORDS

The UBC men claimed first with 861 total points, while the women, who are now three-time consecutive conference champs, earned 949 points. The host University of Alberta Golden Bears achieved their highest finish at the conference event since 1995, when they won the men's silver medal, while the Calgary Dinos, last year's CIS champions, won the men's bronze. The Dino women did capture silver, while the Alberta Pandas earned bronze.

“It was a great team win, and I thought we really showed a lot of character coming into another team's pool and defending our championship,” said first year UBC head coach Steve Price. “We got some really great swims from our rookies on the women's side, as well as from our veteran swimmers like Tommy Gossland and Martha McCabe.”

Individually, Athletes of the Meet were UBC's Savannah King (2nd, Vancouver, BC) and Jason Block of Calgary.

A triple-gold medalist, King was a part of the Thunderbirds' record-setting 800m freestyle relay team on Friday. She also won the very first event of the meet, the 800m freestyle, and on Sunday afternoon won the 400m freestyle, won a silver in the 200m freestyle and bronze in the 200m backstroke for a total of five medals.

"I just wanted to get some points for my team and get us out on top and it worked,” said King.

As for being named the female swimmer of the meet?  "That was the cherry on top of a good meet, it was a surprise but I'm happy to have it and hopefully it leads to something along the same lines at the CIS Championships,” said King.

Block, a quadruple gold medalist over the weekend, established new meet records in the men's 50m and 100m breaststroke, took another gold in the 200m breaststroke, shared gold as a member of the Dinos' 400m Medley Relay team and grabbed a silver medal in 200m Individual Medley to make it a five-medal event.

Rookie of the Year honours went to members of the Calgary Dinos, as Andrew Makosiej won the men's award and Lindsay Delmar was the top women's first-year swimmer.

Makosiej earned two medals, including a bronze in the 400m and 1500m freestyle. He also finished sixth in the 200m backstroke. Delmar, who won six medals, was a member of the Dinos squad that won gold and set a new Canada West record in Saturday's 400m freestyle relay. The Calgary native also won silver in the 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, with the Dinos' 800m freestyle relay team and 400m Medley Relay squad, along with a bronze medal in the 200m freestyle final.

Honoured as Canada West nominees for the CIS student-athlete awards are Matthew Mastromatteo from the Lethbridge Pronghorns and UBC's Hayley Pipher (2nd, Kelowna, BC).

Mastromatteo, a fifth-year Urban and Regional Studies student, has spent the past four seasons as the Can Swim Coach, coaching four times a week. He also volunteers for Operation Red Nose and participated in 'Movember' in the fall of 2011 raising $600.00 for prostate cancer awareness. He qualified for the CIS championship in every season at Lethbridge. At this week' event Mastromatteo placed 11th in the men's 200m backstroke, 12th in the 50m backstroke and 13th in the 100m backstroke.

Pipher, a second-year Bachelor of Science major, is a two-year member of African Awareness Initiative service club. She was also part of Vancouver's Me to We Mobilizers, which sees Vancouver youth fundraise to put on community events at indigenous communities overseas. Over the weekend, Pipher was a bronze medalist in the 400m IM, 6th in the 200m backstroke and 200m IM, 11th in the 50m backstroke.

Named Coach of the Year for the men's event in his sixth season at the helm was Alberta's Bill Humby, who guided the Golden Bears to silver medal, their highest finish at the conference meet since 1995. First-year UBC head coach Steve Price claimed honours for guiding the UBC women's team to gold.

“It feels pretty satisfying coming back to Edmonton for the first time since leaving the club and performing well here and getting the win,” noted Price.

At the 2012 event, nine meet records fell – two on Friday night, four on Saturday and three more on Sunday afternoon.

Tommy Gossland (5th, Nanaimo, BC), of UBC, claimed another new milestone when he broke the men's 100m freestyle with a time of 49.28, besting Chad Hankewich's Calgary record of 49.46 set in 2007.

“It went really well this weekend,” said Gossland, who took home six gold medals.  “I got to set times, meet records and Thunderbird records, I'm really happy with all the work I've put in so far.”

Alberta's Erin Miller picked up another record as well, swimming to a new best time (2:11.53) in the women's 200m fly. She broke a record set in 2009 by UBC's MacKenzie Downing (2:12.02).

Thunderbird Martha McCabe (5th, Toronto, ON) set a new standard in the women's 200m breaststroke, finishing with a time of 2:22.40, which bested her own mark of 2:22.57 which she set last season.

"It was exciting for me as a fifth year because we got to race here in my first year, and then again racing again in Edmonton for my fifth," said McCabe.  "It's a good way to end off five years."

Josh Au made it two gold medals in a row for Alberta when he swam to a first place finish in the men's 200m butterfly. He was followed by UBC's Kevin Chu (3rd, Hong Kong, PRC) and Golden Bear Brent Trevisan.