Senior swimmer Ashlyn Karosas finished her first half of her senior year with a performance for the books. She made her Canadian Olympic trial cut at the Arts Adamson Invitational last weekend, and her teammates and coaches could not be happier for her.
Head coach Joe Dykstra even thinks is was her performance that really set things up for the rest of the team to perform well in the meet.
“We had a very strong first day with a lot of highlights,” Dykstra said. “Ashlyn Karosas qualified for the Canadian Olympic Trials in the 200-meter IM in the morning prelims, and then that carried over to the evening session.”
Since she was competing in the first event of the meet, Karosas was nervous she was not going to get the time she needed to get the trial cut. She had previously achieved her Olympic trial cut a while ago, but unfortunately, the time expires after 18 months.
“I was really stressed and worried I wasn’t going to get my cut again, and I wanted to finish my senior year at Canadian Olympic trials as a last hurrah for my entire swim career,” said Karosas.
In the morning preliminaries, Karosas achieved her cut with a time of 2:22.13.
“Usually at mid-season meets, it isn’t the place to get best time, but should be very close, so to have gotten best time in the middle of the season just goes really well for great things later at the end of the season,” Karosas said.
For the rest of the meet, Karosas kept her positive attitude going and continued to push herself whenever she was competing.
“[The 200-meter IM] was the peak of the meet for me, and I was super excited about it,” Karosas said. “The rest of the meet went really well. I had best time in the 400-meter IM. So I was pleased with the whole meet.”
Although Karosas is riding a high right now, she hopes she can improve on her times later down the road.
“I just want to get some personal best from what I did at the mid-season meet,” said Karosas. “Those times were faster than some of my times I have ever hit in my entire life.”
Her freshman and sophomore year of college, Karosas joined her team at Pac-12, where she achieved personal best in the 200-yard IM (2:05.22), 200-yard backstroke (2:04.90) and 100-yard backstroke (57.40). Last year when Karosas went to Pac-12 meet with her team, she got a best time in in the 100-yard butterfly (55:42) during time trials. Later on, she swam the 400-yard IM, getting a 4:39.42, finishing seventh in the “C” finals.
Next up, Karosas and the Utes will head to Corvallis, Oregon on Jan. 6, where they will compete against Oregon State in their first meet of the second half of season.
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