Thunderbirds close out University Cup Pacific with more high-level performances

VANCOUVER – The T-Birds' lone major home meet of the varsity season is in the books, and both the men's and women's teams cruised to victory at the 2026 University Cup Pacific.

The men finished with a team score of 2,425.5 points, 596 points ahead of second-place Calgary. The UBC women ended the weekend at 2,377.5 points, 590 points ahead of the Dinos.

"Hosting this meet every year is a real point of pride for us, and we look forward to it every year," said T-Birds head coach Derrick Schoof. "This year was no different. We had a great experience. The team swam awesome, both their men and their women. I'm really proud of them, and it was a very successful weekend all around."

With the Canada West Championships just three weeks away, Schoof is pleased with where his teams are at, as they aim to repeat as double champions at the all-important meet in Victoria.

"Yeah, we're right where we want to be. We worked really hard all the way through for the last nine weeks, 10 weeks. Now, we're really ready to start turning the corner a little bit, start our taper, and we're swimming really fast, even though we've been training so hard. So I'm really looking forward to some good things ahead."

Kayla Sanchez holds on to her starting block in the water, after finishing her race

Bridget Burton and Kayla Sanchez continued their fantastic weekends, each breaking a meet record for the second day in a row. Burton's dominance in the backstroke events continued with wins in both the Women's 50m (27.29 seconds) and 200m (2:06.06), the latter a meet record. Piper Mitchell finished second behind Burton in both of the above events, while Sophia Musselman placed third in the 200m (2:13.99).

Sanchez, meanwhile, once again demonstrated her own dominance in freestyle, breaking the meet record in the Women's 50m (24.15). The two other UBC women to earn podium placements in individual events on Sunday were Kyah De Mitri in the 100m Breaststroke (1:09.08, second), and Julia Norman in the 200m Freestyle (2:01.81, third).

On the men's side, Kai Lilienthal broke the meet record in the 100m Butterfly (52.22), finishing less than a second ahead of teammate Wells Ginzer (53.11). That came after the third-year star had won the 50m Backstroke (24.44), as part of a podium sweep with Frank Ho (24.90) and Joran Orogo (25.26).

Kai Lilienthal swims through the water

The 200m Freestyle was another T-Birds sweep, with Zachary Parise (1:45.74), Aiden Kirk (1:47.67) and Paul Hebrard (147.70) taking the top three spots, followed close behind by Noah Weaver (1:48.13).

Jaques Harrison continued his great meet with individual wins in both the 200m Backstroke (1:54.62) and 200m Medley (1:58.98). Yuri Kisil won gold in the shortest event of the night, the 50m Freestyle (22.09), followed by Ho in second (22.52). On the other end of the spectrum, the longest event of the night was the Men's 1500m, won by Kirk (15:07.91), with Tanner Cole in third (15:27.54). Sebastian van de Logt rounded out the individual medallists with a third-place finish in the 100m Breaststroke (1:00.44).

The Thunderbirds again won all four relay events, with the team of Burton, De Mitri, Sela Wist and Sanchez breaking the meet record in the Women's 4x100m Medley (3:58.30). The team of Burton, Sanchez, Ruby Kehler and Norman also eked out a win in the 4x50m Freestyle, just one hundredth of a second ahead of the Swim BC All-Stars.

For the men, the team of Kisil, Ho, Lilienthal and Ginzer claimed victory in the 4x50m Freestyle (1:29.79), before Harrison, van de Logt, Lilienthal and Kisil dominated the 4x100m Medley (3:34.12), a full five seconds ahead of the Dinos.