The Utah swim and dive team had an eventful weekend of competition.
Over the weekend, the women’s swim team stayed in Utah to take on Boise State and UCLA in a back-to-back dual meets on Friday and Saturday. Unfortunately for the Utes, they were topped by both Boise State (159-118) and UCLA (182-95) at the Ute Natatorium.
“Today was pretty ugly for us,” said Utah head coach Joe Dykstra. “This was probably the slowest we have swam all year. I can’t tell you how proud I am of the training we have put in these past three weeks, though; It has been the best stretch of training we have had all year. I just think we paid the price for that today — it just looked exhausting across the board. We didn’t like getting beat in a dual meet, but I know we are on the right track with our training. That is the most important thing. It will pay dividends when we taper into the end of the season.”
Although the Utes walked away with no event wins, there were some close calls. A few swimmers put up good fights, taking second places in narrow fashion.
Of those swimmers were breaststrokers junior Stina Colleou and freshman Genevieve Robertson. Colleou was just out-touched by UCLA’s Emma Schanz, taking second in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:05.21), while Robertson took second as well behind Shanz in the 200-yard breaststroke (2:18.79). Freshman Gillian St. John also took a second-place finish in the 50-yard freestyle (24.18).
“We need to be a lot sharper,” Dykstra said. “We are transitioning into a new phase of training where we are going to do a lot more speed and pace work coming up and add a little more recovery into their week, so they should be able to feel a lot fresher and execute much sharper races next week.”
As for the men and women’s dive team, they traveled to Los Angeles, Calif. to compete at the UCLA Diving Invitational (Jan. 15-17). On the first day of competition, junior Josiah Purss came away with a total score of 768.35 in the three-meter event. He nudged out senior teammate Jacob Crayne, who finished second with a score of 703.30.
On the second day of competition, Crayne took second in the platform event with a total score of 717.00. Purss followed in third (652.25) and freshmen Daniel Theriault took fifth (562.30). Junior Amanda Casillas took sixth in the three-meter event with a total score of 580.50 while sophomore Lauren Hall took 13th (547.15).
On the third and final day, Crayne earned the victory with a total score of 746.85, after winning in the one-meter event. Purss also earned a top-five finish with a score of 639.35, behind his teammate.
In the women’s platform event, five dives were performed. Casillas placed fourth in the event, jumping three spots ahead of her preliminary tries and finishing with a score of 483.05.
“We had a great start to the second half of the season,” said diving coach Richard Marschner. “The team is looking good, and we are set up for a great stretch run.”
Up next for the Utes, both the men and women’s team will head to Provo to take on BYU on Jan. 23.
“For the men, it’s going to be a tough task,” Dykstra said. “BYU is really good on the men’s side, and we are going to be a little short-handed next week, being without a few guys, so it is going to be a real challenge for the guys to step up and try to win that meet.”
This meet will mark the first of the men’s second half of their season and is set to begin at 11 a.m. MST.
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