If a Tree and a Bear take down a Trojan without a single splash, does it even make a sound? 

Apparently, it does, because this past weekend brought notable losses for both the men’s and women’s swim and dive teams in back-to-back short-course dual meets against UC Berkeley on Jan. 16 and Stanford the following day. The latter meet was Senior Night, where 13 seniors were honored in what could be described as a grisly goodbye. 

The meet against Cal was a more competitive loss, with the women falling 156-144 and the men 178-122, but Stanford was a different story. Perhaps it was having to compete 24 hours after giving their all against the Bears, but the women then lost to the Cardinal by 117 points and the men by 107.

“We competed as well as we ever have,” Head Coach Lea Maurer said in an interview with Daily Trojan on Tuesday. “As we get into the championship season, it’s really working on building our confidence [and] attention to detail.”

Those details include needed improvement in the team performances. The only relay USC managed to win in the weekend of competition was the men’s 400 medley relay against Cal, with a new pool record from an A-team of graduate student Vaggelis Makrygiannis, sophomore Junhao Chan, junior Michal Chmielewski and sophomore Oliver Sogaard-Andersen.

USC also gave up the top two spots in several key events that it hadn’t struggled with previously, including the men’s 200 freestyle as well as the men’s 50 freestyle in both meets. Against Stanford alone, the Trojans didn’t place first or second in the men’s 100 breaststroke, 200 butterfly, 100 freestyle or the women’s 50 free.

Unlike previous meets, USC’s strengths lacked uniformity. Rather than having stronger strokes, there were stronger individual Trojans for whom the competition brought out their best.

By far the biggest moment of the weekend was when Chmielewski not only took first in the 100 butterfly against Cal, but also broke the team record at an impressive new personal record of 45.08. 

“[Michal] has got dirty underwater. He’s incredible on his underwater work,” Maurer said. “He just closes. His last 25 is just phenomenal and [the 100 fly] is such a short race, so we’re trying to work on him pressing that front end and believing he can still come home like a freight train.”

Taking .85 seconds off of his 45.93 personal best, Chmielewski snatched the record away from Santo Condorelli’s time in 2018 while also managing to win the 200 butterfly for good measure, bringing some much-needed fodder to USC’s morale and an old placard to Chmielewski’s personal collection.

“Nothing is better than when Michal is happy. He’s a very earnest and hardworking guy, I think he’s got a harsh inner critic,” Maurer said. “He loves when you break the team record [because] we give you the old placard. So he’s really excited.”

While he didn’t set another record against Stanford, Chmiwelewski still came back for another win in the 100 fly and took the 100 backstroke, one of the few event wins for the Trojans that day. Among those wins was also Makrygiannis’s swim in the 200 back, the third-fastest time in program history and a little payback for his third-place finish in the 100 to Chmiwelewski.

Junior Minna Abraham covered nearly all of her bases across the medley over both meets, getting wins on both days. Against Cal, Abraham took the 200 freestyle and qualified for the NCAA Championship with a winning time of 22.06 in the 50 free. However, she took a break from dominating in freestyle in favor of paying attention to the other strokes, earning a win in the  100 backstroke against Stanford.

“Abraham has been a really good role model,” Maurer said.“A great leader is someone who models what to expect, articulates what’s to [be expected], and then believes so much in their teammates that they believe in themselves.”

Nevertheless, Abraham wasn’t the only member of the women’s team who swam to NCAA standards. Against Cal, freshman Bella Brito won the 100 breaststroke with an NCAA-qualifying time, as well as taking the 200 breaststroke for herself.

Senior Justina Kozan made the Cal meet her own, earning a triple win in the 200 fly, 500 free and 400 individual medley — some of the most physically taxing events races, meeting NCAA standards in all three events. Though she struggled against Stanford, she still pulled out a second place in the 200 fly. 

The divers fared slightly better than their swimming counterparts. Against Cal, the Trojans occupied second through fourth in the women’s 1-meter, with sophomore Kate Miller leading the pack and earning first in the 3-meter, as well as taking first in the 1-meter against Stanford. Seniors Robert Gref and Laurent Gosselin-Paradis placed first and second in the men’s 1-meter against Cal, separated by only 6.67 points. 

The men and women will go down separate paths in their upcoming meets, with the women facing off against UCLA on Jan. 30 and 31 and the men competing against UNLV on Feb. 6. Thanks to this weekend, they can contemplate in the meantime where they need to improve and build their strengths as a team, focusing on fine-tuning the details.

“I think we’ve done the work,” Maurer said, “but now we need to gather the good and believe in it a little bit.”