It was a picture perfect day at the Hillenbrand Aquatic Center Saturday afternoon, and the No. 4 Arizona women’s swim team’s dominant performance against No. 16 Texas didn’t disappoint either.
The day’s first event was only a sign of things to come as Arizona finished in the first three in the 200m medley relay, with the third place team still finishing more than a full second ahead of the Texas’ ‘A’ team.
“”I think they all did a real nice job,”” UA head coach Frank Busch said. “”We certainly swam a whole lot better than I thought we’d swim.””
Did they ever.
Out of the 14 events, Arizona won 12, finished first and second 10 times and swept the top three positions six times. The team had just finished with its rigorous Christmas training program, so fatigue set in from the intense training and weight sessions.
All things considered, the domination came as a bit of a shock to everyone.
Sophomore Annie Chandler had a particularly strong meet, as she won both individual meets she raced in – the 100m breaststroke (1:03.31) and the 200m breaststroke (2:17.10) – and helped her relay team finish first in the 200m medley relay and third in the 200m freestyle relay.
“”It’s special to beat UT anytime because they’ve always been kind of a renowned program,”” Chandler said. “”(This meet had) different circumstances (than the last time we faced Texas) because I feel like we’re not rested. This was midseason, right after our hardest training of the year, so we’re all broken down right now. They’re probably in a similar state, so it was just raw racing out there.””
At this point in the season, teams are usually trying to break down their bodies so they have enough time to train hard and build them back up for the Pacific 10 Conference championships and the NCAA championships in February and March, respectively, Busch said.
He also talked about the importance for Arizona to spend this time to sharpen up the finer points of its swimming style, “”build up an aerobic base”” and increase endurance because many UA swimmers have already posted qualifying times for the NCAA championships.
“”(We’ve) just been practicing racing and it was good to put it to use and show how hard we’ve been working,”” sophomore Caitlin Iversen said.
Sophomore Ana Agy also had a quality showing as she took down the 100m butterfly and finished second in the 200m butterfly with times of 54.80 and 204.18, respectively.
Other UA swimmers who preformed well included senior Lacey Nymeyer (won the 200m freestyle and 500m freestyle, second in the 50m freestyle), sophomore Justine Schluntz (won the 100m backstroke, second in the 100m freestyle), and Iversen (won the 200y backstroke, third in the 400y individual medley).
“”(The Texas meet) showed that our girls are here to race,”” Agy said. “”We set our goals high, and we realize that every opportunity we have to race we have to put our all into it every time. We did that (Saturday) and that was really exciting.””
