By Matthias McManus
Meet Stats
- Arizona State intrasquad meet (25 yard course)
- Gold Women beat Maroon 110-71, Gold Men beat Maroon 114-86
- Results
Bob Bowman‘s freshman class lives up to the hype at Arizona State University’s Maroon and Gold Intrasquad swim meet.
ASU’s swim team divided into two teams with 24 on the Maroon team and 21 on Gold. Gold swept the team title with 224 points, the women’s with 110 points and the men’s with 114 points. The Maroon scored 157 points in the team score, 71 points in women’s and 86 points in men’s.
The ASU swim team was tired and there was no preparation going into the meet, according to head coach Bob Bowman.
“The training the team has done this season so far has been great,” Bowman said. “We trained this morning, they’re wearing practice suits and we had a typical hard week of training.”
Bowman noted that he was pleased with the swims today especially from the freshmen swimmers.
The freshman class won 10 out of the 18 individual events at the meet. Freshmen Chole Isleta, Kendall Dawson, Ben Olszewski and Cameron Craig all won two events at the meet. Claire Fisch and Gillian Rieth won one event.
Isleta helped the Gold team come back to win with her butterfly leg on the 200 medley relay. She also turned in the winning time of 2:03.91 in the 200 individual medley and 55.93 in the 100 backstroke.
“I was nervous for this meet today because it was my first time competing at the college level,” Isleta said. “The upperclassmen reassured the freshmen that this meet is nothing to worry about and that helped me with my nerves.”
Isleta noted that she needs to work on her underwaters moving forward with the season as well as her breaststroke.
Other freshman wins:
- Kendall Dawson won the 1,000 freestyle in 10:18.39 and 500 freestyle in 5:02.34.
- Ben Olszewski also won the distance double going a 9:24.00 in the 1,000 freestyle and 4:32.71 in the 500 freestyle.
- Cameron Craig won the 200 individual medley in 1:51.77 and the 100 freestyle in 45.48 out touching senior Thomaz Martins who swam the event in 45.61. Craig also split a 19.88 on the freestyle leg of the 200 medley relay and a 44.08 on the 400 freestyle relay.
- Claire Fisch won the 50 freestyle with the time 23.42 and Gillian Rieth won the 100 butterfly in 58.00.
Other notable swims:
- Patrick Park won the 100 butterfly in 48.50 just ahead of teammate Tadas Duskinas who touched the wall at 48.83. “Going out in a 21 in the 100 fly is not bad, I’m okay with that,” Park said. “Obviously I want to be better for my teammates, but I’ve got a lot of work to do before our next meet.”
- Richard Bohus won the 50 freestyle in 20.20 and the 100 backstroke in 48.24.
Assistant coach Dan Kesler expressed how much progress the team has made this year.
“Our team has improved so much from last year in racing, skill level and the team attitude,” Kesler said. “The swimmers know what to expect after a year with Bowman and are seeing some significant progress already.”
The practices are more intense than they were last year according to Kesler and it looks like it’s paying off.
“The team as a whole swam well, but I’m proud of what our freshmen did at this meet,” Kesler said.
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Matthias McManus is a first semester sophomore at Arizona State University studying journalism and mass communication. Swam competitively for 14 years and previously swam for ASU freshman year. Social outreach coordinator for the State Press. Career goals include becoming an editor for a digital news publication.
When adults who call themselves swim gurus call teenage athletes or freshmen, ‘average’, one can’t help but wonder…based on what?
Everyone is not Ledecky! These girls who were unjustly called ‘average’ are Olympic Trial qualifiers in multiple events and are State Champions in their respective states!!! For goodness sakes, DO NOT be cruel!!! And you guys wonder what in the world is going on with America???! People and statements made above such as Weirdo’s, in my opinion, is irresponsible and unsubstantiated. These young athletes read your comments for God sakes!!! Putting down kids are just not acceptable. Or should we just tolerate this kind of mean spirited society?
Average among college swimmers at elite programs, average among swimmers who competed this weekend, top fifty recruits, etc. it’s whatever pool of swimmers they’re competing amongst; that’s the started we hold them to and the standard they hold themselves to. What’s the point in trying to evaluate them on a relative scale if everyone above a certain bar is uniformly “exceptional”. We’re swim fans, we watch college swimming to see high level competition, so forgive us if we’re disappointed if a much hyped program doesn’t perform to expectations. Obviously this is just an intrasquad meet so that’s not the case here.
Way to go Sun Devils! Great first meet. Ignore the haters! Haters are going to hate and small minds cannot comprehend big spirits! As they say…to be great, you have to be willing to be mocked, hated and be misunderstood! Stay strong, Sun Devils!!!
Who is the “THEY” who say to be great one must be willing to be mocked, hated and misunderstood? Sounds like an anonymous high school freshman came up with that quote!
Most inter-squad meets demonstrate very little. Certainly Coach Bowman and his staff will maximize the abilities of the ASU athletes. They will not make a great NCAA showing this year. I give them 2 years in which to break into the top 10 and 4 years to slip into the top 4 on either the men’s or women’s side. This is assuming Bob stays in Tempe through that term. More likely is that he gets wooed away by a BIGGIE. (AU combined, UT men or STANFORD men).
When adults who call themselves swim gurus call teenage athletes or freshmen, ‘average’, one can’t help but wonder…based on what?
Everyone is not Ledecky! These girls who were unjustly called ‘average’ are Olympic Trial qualifiers in multiple events and are State Champions in their respective states!!! For goodness sakes, DO NOT be cruel!!! And you guys wonder what in the world is going on with America???! People and statements made above such as Weirdo’s, in my opinion, is irresponsible and unsubstantiated. These young athletes read your comments for God sakes!!! Putting down kids are just not acceptable. Or should we just tolerate this kind of mean spirited society.
Girls are average. The guy sprinters were ok but other than that, not really impressed.
I mean for having practiced that morning the times arent too bad. Of course the arent texas or cal but there were some nice swims tucked away in there for a practice day. Im just worried that bowman will over train his atheletes by trying to use the same system he did with phelps (i think phelps looked overtrained this summer the way he struggled to close his 200 fly compared to a lighter work load last year). But he seems like a smart enough guy to know yardage isnt everything.
Yardage or not, the swimmers who swam for the previous coaches are dropping serious time with Bowman. Patrick Park being a great example.
“…worried that bowman will over train his athletes by trying to use the same system he did with phelps…”
Yes Thatnis a legitimate concern. Bowman is a very traditional over distance/high intensity/high yardage coach. Obviously that system can work well, but its weakness (and every program has them) is that some athletes can wind up badly overtrained.
I am a little concerned about Bowman delivering lots of lectures on the development of Michael Phelps. Certainly Bowman has earned the privilege, but I worry a generation of coaches will grow up trying to apply that program to their swimmers. Phelps was able to absorb everything Bowman threw at him, with training loads that would have driven other very gifted swimmers… Read more »
Way to go Sun Devils!!! Great first meet. Ignore the haters! Haters are going to hate and small minds cannot comprehend big spirits! As they say…to be great, you have to be willing to be mocked, hated and be misunderstood! Stay strong, Sun Devils!!!