Little Rock vs. Illinois State (Women)
- March 27, 2021
- Virtual Dual Meet (each team swam at their home pool)
- Short Course Yards (25 yards)
- Results
- Team Scores:
- Illinois State 157, Little Rock 116
Both Illinois State and UALR finished their regular seasons on Saturday with a virtual dual meet.
Each team raced in their home pools, and results were combined and scored virtually.
Both teams were dominant at different points of the meet. For Illinois State, that started early with a 1-2 finish in the 200 medley relay (Little Rock’s A relay was disqualified, but would have placed 2nd).
After Redbird Dee Dee Walker won the 1000 free in 10:31.79, Illinois State took the top 3 spots in the 200 free, led by Raegan Follis in 1:52.49 and Olivia Gonder in 1:52.76. For Gonder, a freshman, that’s a lifetime best, knocking almost 2 seconds off her previous fastest time of 1:54.53 from high school. That swim now ranks her 9th in the Missouri Valley Conference this season.
The Little Rock women fought back a little with a 1-2-3-4 finish in the 50 free, led by a 24.47 from Delaney Crowder.
After that dominant performance in the individual event, Little Rock also won the meet-ending 200 free relay in 1:37.10 – a three second margin over Illinois State.
Those events represented 2 of the 5 victories for Little Rock at the meet. The other 2 both came from senior Annya Grom, who broke a pair of school records at the meet. Her first came in the 100 breaststroke, where she swam 1:03.48 to win the race by almost 5 seconds.
That time broke her own school record of 1:03.74 set last year, and she now ranks 2nd in the conference this season behind only Southern Illinois’ Miroslava Zaborska (1:01.91).
Grom followed that with a 55.12 in the 100 fly, which breaks a four year old record of 55.38 done by Courtney Coe in 2017.
This is the second-straight meet in which Grom has broken school records as she wraps up her collegiate career with a bang. Two weeks ago, in a tri against Southern Illinois and Valparaiso, she broke school records in both the 50 free (23.29) and 100 free (50.60).
“Today was a nice benchmark for us ahead of our championship,” said Little Rock head coach Amy Burgess. “Annya has put in the work to earn these records, so we’re excited for her. The atmosphere on deck was great and really pushed the ladies that finished their season today. Now we’re looking forward to taper and conference in a few weeks!”
Both teams are preparing for the upcoming postponed Missouri Valey Conference Championship meet, which will run from April 14-16 at Southern Illinois University.
Go Birds! Nice coverage. MVC Championships coming up.