Utah traveled their women’s swimming and diving program out to Corvallis, Oregon for a duel meet against their PAC-12 foe Oregon State University. Oregon State lost at home, 165-95, which gave Utah’s new Head Coach Joe Dykstra his first win at Utah.
“We were faster than we’ve been in the last two meets, and those are the steps that we need to take,” said head coach Larry Liebowitz. “We need to continue learning. Utah did some things better than we did, and we need to learn from that.”
– Quote from Head Coach Larry Liebowitz from OSU official press release
“I am extremely pleased with how we performed today,” said Dykstra. “We are in the midst of a very tough training yet the girls ignored the fatigue and pushed through. We had a couple of LTB and won a lot of close finishes. We still have to get better at the details, but I am very excited about a great start to the season!”
– Quote from Head Coach Joe Dykstra from Utah’s official press release
The Utes were off to a strong start with the 200 medley relay teams finishing first and second. Traycie Swartz, Nicole Ligeza, Petra Soininen and Giuliana Gigliotti teamed up to stop the clock at 1:45.11. Oregon State finished back in third, 1:49.31.
Sophomore Sammy Harrison from Oregon State won the 1000 freestyle at 10:04.58. She lead wire-to-wire, finished and got right up on the blocks to win the 200 freestyle at 1:51.49. Talk about tough with that back-to-back swim, leading both races from start to finish.
Utah’s senior Swartz took her first victory of two of the evening in the 100 backstroke. She finished at 56.42. Amani Amr, OSU sophomore, finished second in 57.35.
Utah has a very strong youths on their team, which showed here when freshman Stina Colleau won the 100 and 200 breaststroke, 1:04.38/2:17.38. In her senior season with OSU, Crystal Kibby finished third in the 100 breaststroke, 1:05.89.
The Utes had Soininen stayed calm and attacked the second half in her butterfly races to win both. She clocked 56.20 in the 100 and 2:03.22 in the 200 butterfly. Senior Aya Fujimura, OSU, had two third place finishes. One in the 200 butterfly, 2:09.44, then later in the meet in the 100 butterfly, 58.83.
Gigliotti took her relay speed to the race to win the 50 freestyle at 24.25. Freshman Sophie MacEwan showed some speed for the Beavers finishing second, 24.96.
Swartz finished on top of the field in the 100 freestyle, which was her second victory of the evening, in 52.02. Sophomore Constance Toulemonade placed third for OSU in 54.79.
Amanda Barrett of Utah had a race with OSU’s Amr. Down to the touch, Barrett came out victorious at 2:02.74 while Amr finished second again in the backstroke race, marginally at 2:02.93.
Colleou, Utah, swam about five seconds faster than the field at 2:17.92. Kibby, OSU, took second in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:22.45. Freshman Chelsea Chan raced against her upperclassman teammate but ended up in third (2:23.46).
OSU’s Harrison won her third event of the evening in the 500 freestyle at 4:53.65.
Barrett cruised to win the 400 IM of the night, as the only swimmer under 4:30 at 4:28.28. Her teammate Sydney Bull was second 4:30.69. And Kibby added another third place in the 400 IM, 4:32.79.
Utah rounded off the meet with a win in the sprint freestyle relay (1:37.53), but scored it as an exhibition. The Beavers rounded off the meet with a third place 200 freestyle relay of Amr, MacEwan, Harrison and Toulemonde in 1:40.02.
The Beavers will host Stanford on Oct. 25. at the Osborn Aquatic Center.
Utes will scrimmage against the University of Hawaii on Oct. 16. Upon returning, the men and women host Arizona on Oct. 19.
