Utah swimmer Jordan Anderson is already in the spotlight, and she’s just a freshman.
In her first meet with the Utes against USC, Anderson placed first in the 500-yard freestyle (5:03.98), second place in the 200-yard individual medley (2:09.17) and third in the 1,000-yard freestyle (10:28.20).
Head coach Joe Dykstra has been impressed by the 18-year-old so far and thinks she’s heading in the right direction.
“It was her first dual meet, so I put her in three of the hardest races in the meet, the 1000, the 500 and the 200 IM, and she was a real standout in all of those,” Dykstra said. “It’s a great start to her career.”
The Utes were in California earlier this month for their second and third meets and competed against Stanford and Cal. Although the team lost to both, she didn’t let her nerves get the better of her as she finished second in the 200 fly (2:01.33).
“Anderson was a real stand-out, going pretty close to her best time and almost beating an Olympian in the 200 fly against Cal, so she really swam well,” Dykstra said.
Since Anderson is originally from California, she felt comfortable performing at home. During her high school years she swam at Granite Bay High School, and while there, she took third in state in the 500 free and 200 free and finished eighth at Juniors in 400 IM. She was also a three-time Marlin of the Year award recipient and lettered four years.
However, these awards are not enough for her. She wants to keep improving and and hopes the hard work will pay off towards the end of the season.
“I’m really looking forward to the Pac-12 Championships,” Anderson said. “I want to final at the championships and really try to qualify for the NCAA Championships as well.”
She has a few team goals as well. She hopes the team can make the top three at the Pac-12 Championships, but Dykstra thinks the Utes need to improve on their self-discipline before they can achieve this.
“We were not very good with some of the technical aspects,” Dykstra said. “Being disciplined enough to not breathe coming off of the wall, or taking too many breaths on the last 25 of a race. Little things like that, having the self discipline to push through what hurts, to get those extra tenths of a second.”
Even with these flaws, Dykstra still has positive thoughts about the rest of the year.
“On the women’s side, I think our freshman are incredible, and I think we have potentially three or four NCAA competitors,” said Dykstra.
In Anderson’s most recent meet against Florida Gulf Coast and Boise State, she showed tremendous improvement in her events as she hit a 5:03.27 in the 500-yard freestyle and a 10:24.76 in the 1000-yard freestyle. While it is still early in the season, she feels she has been steadily progressing and is excited to see where her team is going to go.
“I think we are going to do really awesome and we are ready to swim fast,” said Anderson.
Anderson and the rest of the Utah women’s team will next host UC Davis on Nov. 6.
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