The 2005-06 U swimming and diving team took to the pool for the first time Thursday night, as the Utes welcomed Villanova and in-state rival BYU to the Ute Natatorium for the Don Reddish Relays.
While total team scores weren’t tallied, the Cougars had first-place winners in 14 of the 20 swimming events, while Utah came out on top in the other six.
Utah’s roster this year is full of newcomers, replacing the glut of graduated seniors from last year’s MWC championship squad, so head coach Mike Litzinger wasn’t too concerned with results just yet.
“Where we are at in our training, we’re doing OK,” Litzinger said. “We knew this was an exhibition meet, so we kind of put certain people in some events just to get them a feel for it, especially the newer athletes. So it was good.”
The Ute women accounted for four of the Utes’ six victories, as the women’s 200-yard, 400-yard and 500-yard freestyle relay teams all came out on top, as well as the women’s 300-yard butterfly team.
One of the team’s new additions, freshman Jennifer Fredsall, was a part of two victorious groups, and that didn’t go unnoticed by the Utah coaching staff.
“Jennifer Fredsall did a great job leading off our butterfly relay and being on our free relay (teams),” Litzinger said.
Litzinger was also impressed by the performance of junior Amber Walter, who participated in all four of the Ute women’s victories.
On the men’s side, the 300-yard backstroke relay team beat out BYU’s squad by less than two seconds for a first-place finish, while the men’s 500-yard freestyle team defeated BYU by nearly five full seconds. While there were some promising performances, Litzinger knows this season, like any other, is a long-term proposition.
“This is such an interesting sport because you train all year long basically for one meet-the conference championship.
These dual meets and relay meets are fun, but right now we’re thinking about February,” Litzinger said. “We made some mistakes tonight. We got everything on film. Just like the football coaches, we’ll break it down and review on Saturday.”