Swimmers of the Week
Men’s Swimmer of the Week-Austin Staab (Stanford)– Staab showed how huge he can be for the Stanford Cardinal this season with three wins in his first collegiate meet in a year.
Women’s Swimmer of the Week-Shannon Landgrebe (Arizona State)- Landgrebe took a freestyle triple in very good times.
Stanford Tops UoP
After a year-long leave of absence, for reasons still unknown, Austin Staab has finally made his return for Stanford yesterday as the #3 Cardinal took down the University of the Pacific in Palo Alto.
Staab, who hasn’t swum a meet of significance since the Buffalo Sectionals meet in March, won three individual events to pace the Cardinal to a 159-92 Victory. This moves Stanford to 2-0 in dual meets, and drops Pacific to 1-3.
Staab’s wins were in the 100 free (45.42), the 200 free (1:40.67), and 100 fly (50.40). It’s not yet clear where Staab is in his training, and if those times, which are well off of his best, are due to lack of conditioning or coming off of tough winter training. Either way, this is a big boon for the Cardinal men in their quest to keep their decades-long streaks of Pac-10 Championships and NCAA top-4 finishes.
Stanford swept the meet, including many impressive times on the tail end of their tough holiday training season. Sophomore Michael Zoldos won the 1000 in 9:22.18: just 3 seconds off of his season best. Robert Lovelace swept the breaststroke events. This includes a season-best time of 56.73 in the 100 breaststroke.
On the women’s side, the #1 Stanford women (4-0) took the victory on the strength of 5 double winners over Pacific (5-2).
Freshmen Andie Taylor and Maya DiRado were locked in a great battle in the 200 free, with Taylor hanging on at the end to get the victory in 1:48.99 ahead of DiRado’s 1:49.24. Freshman Felicia Lee took another win for Stanford’s impressive freshman class in the 100 fly in 54.01.
The Stanford sprinters were definitely on top of their games. In the 50, Betsey Webb cracked out a 22.96 to take the win just ahead of Samantha Woodward (23.10). The Cardinal are counting on big things from their sprint group this year in a wide-open NCAA season on the women’s side.
The Cardinal’s next meet is January 21 at #2 Arizona.
Arizona Women Knock Off Oregon State, Northern Arizona
Arizona 157, Northern Arizona University 122
Arizona 166, Oregon State 114
Northern Arizona 166, Oregon State 133
The Arizona Wildcats took down Oregon State and Norther Arizona in a tri-meet in Tucson, led by strong performances from their freshman class. Rookies Margo Geer (50 free), Sarah Denninghoff (200 free), Aubrey Peacock (100 free, 100 back, 100 fly) and Eve Sarris (100 breast, 200 breast) showed off the dominance of the Wildcats’ newest recruits in combining for 7 individual wins.
The versatile Peacock swam matching 56’s in the 100 back and fly, and a 51.71 in the 100 free. The 100 free was probably the most impressive of the three, with a time of 51.71. Geer’s time in the individual 50 free of 23.43 was well off of her season best (which ranks her 2nd in the nation), but her 22.85 split to anchor the winning medley relay was very encouraging for an early January split.
Neither of the Wildcats’ opponents has a men’s squad, but the Arizona men took advantage of the opportunity to race by splitting into two teams headed by Captains Cory Chitwood and Rob Iddiols. The intrasquad came down to the final relay, with Team Chitwood outtouching their opposition to take the victory and bragging rights.
#23 UCLA Women Dominate Boise State, Washington State on Senior Night
The UCLA Bruins sent their seniors out with a bang in their final home meet of the season by defeating the Boise State Bronces 169-106 and the Washington State Cougars 166-90. This moves UCLA to 9-1 on the season, while Washington State was handed it’s first loss since February of last year.
Jasmin Jahanshahi led the way for UCLA by winning both the 500 free (4:53.46) and 200 fly (1:58.88). The former is a season best time for her, and the latter is very close. Jahanshahi has still not lost a 200 fly race this season. School-record holder Brittany Beauchan won the 100 breast in an impressive 1:02.67.
UCLA’s next meet will be an end of January double against Pac-10 rivals Stanford and Cal.
#9 USC Men/#5 USC Women Knock off UCSB
The #9 USC Men knocked off brand-new Pac-10 opponents UC-Santa Barbara 140-44, while the #5 USC Women beat the same squad (who are not Pac-10 members) 165-92.
On the men’s side, freshman Vlad Morozov, while off of his season-best times, still managed to sneak under the 20-second barrier in the 50 with a time of 19.97. UCSB’s Chris Peterson was unable to break the mythical barrier, but was just behind in 20.01. In the 100, however, Peterson shocked the McDonald’s swim center when he knocked off the field to touch in 44.70. Morozov was second in 44.77.
The women didn’t swim quite as fast as the men, but still had a fairly good meet. Freshman Kasey Carlson won the 100 breaststroke in 1:03.44, but more importantly she continued her development in the sprints with a 50 free win in 23.51. Coach Dave Salo, who has experience taking sprint breaststrokers and developing them into sprint freestylers with Jessica Hardy, will need to work his magic on Carlson towards the end of the season to give USC their best chance at winning the National Championship.
The men competed again in the afternoon in a “sprint” meet, with many non-NCAA events. USC won that meet as well.
Other Results
Shannon Landgrebe swept the 100 (50.85), 200 (1:49.56), and 500 (4:58.60) freestyles en route to Arizona State beating Oregon State and future Pac-10 opponent Utah in a tri-meet…
