SAN LUIS OBISPO – Cal kicked off its 2018-19 season by crowning a new champion at the Queen of the Pool meet Friday at Cal Poly, with junior Abbey Weitzeil taking top honors for her efforts in five different events.
 
The unique event, which included men's and women's teams from Cal and Cal Poly, features swimmers competing in the 100-yard freestyle, 100-yard backstroke, 100-yard breaststroke, 100-yard butterfly and 100-yard individual medley. The times are added up, and the person with the lowest combined time is declared queen for the day.
 
"Congratulations to Abbey for winning the meet today," head coach Teri McKeever said. "This meet always serves as a good way to kick off the season. We saw some promising things, as well as some areas where we need some work – nothing unusual. We also have a few people banged up and held them out of the meet as a precaution, especially because it's so early in the year."
 
Weitzeil easily topped the women's field with an overall time of 4:44.22, more than five seconds ahead of runner-up Keaton Blovad, who came through at 4:49.43. Sarah Darcel picked up third-place honors at 4:53.88, and she was followed by Robin Neumann (4:56.65) and Alicia Wilson (4:57.08).
 
Weitzeil dominated the individual races, taking first place in four of them – 100 back (56.47), 100 breast (1:03.35), 100 free (49.38) and 100 IM (56.87). Darcel claimed the 100 fly in 55.78.
 
In the men's competition, the Bears' Andrew Seliskar was crowned king of the meet.
 
The Cal women are back in action Oct. 5-6 at the Chick-fil-A Invitational at Fresno State, and host their first home meet of the year on Oct. 10 when Utah visits Spieker Aquatics Complex.