Kansas Women Improve To 3-0 Following Big 12 Victory Against TCU

KANSAS VS. TCU

  • Results
  • Hosted by University of Kansas
  • Thursday, October 27th
  • 25 yards
  • Dual meet format

FINAL TEAM SCORES

  • Kansas: 190
  • TCU: 108

Thursday night in Kansas brought some Big 12 dual meet action, as the University of Kansas women took on TCU at home. The Jayhawk women improved to 3-0 on the season, as they secured the home meet victory over the Horned Frogs with a final score of 190-108.

Haley Downey swept the breaststroke races for Kansas in the win, clocking times of 1:05.25 and 2:20.92 in the 100 breast and 200 breast respectively. Her teammate Libby Walker also swept her specialty events, winning the distance free races with a 5:00.80 in the 500 free and a 10:15.03 in the 1000 free.

TCU freshman Elise Forzley brought home a victory for the Horned Frogs, taking the 200 back victory in 2:03.28 ahead of Kansas’ Elizabeth Amato-Hanner (2:04.09).

PRESS RELEASE – KANSAS:

LAWRENCE, Kan. – There was nothing leisurely about Kansas’ mid-afternoon swim at Robinson Natatorium Thursday, but it sure was fun. The Jayhawks opened the meet with seven straight event wins and claimed the top spot in 13 out of 16 to hand Big 12 foe TCU a 190-108 loss. Kansas improved to 3-0 in dual meets this season and 3-0 in televised home meets over the last three seasons.

Haley Bishop, Haley Downey and Yulya Kuchkarova each contributed to relay and individual event wins before the Horned Frogs were able to get on the board with a win in three-meter diving. The Jayhawks won eight straight swimming events when Breonna Barker claimed the 100-yard freestyle before Elise Forzely stopped the run by winning the 200-yard backstroke.

“Swimmers are very observant of what’s going on around them, especially when they look at the scoreboard,” Kansas head coach Clark Campbell said. “You win one race and the next they think, ‘We don’t want to be the first event that loses.’ It kind of spurs them on.

“TCU’s Forzely is a really good kid, we recruited her, we knew she was going to be tough to beat today. It really adds a lot to the next event when the event right before you does so well. We were kind of feeding off each other’s performances and each other’s energy and came away with a really good meet.”

Kansas opened the dual with a nearly three-second victory in the 200-yard medley and closed the meet with an even more dominant, nearly eight-second win in the 400-yard freestyle relay. In between, Kansas dropped just one race while claiming 13 of 14 swimming events.

Libby Walker made it back-to-back wins for the Jayhawks by leading wire-to-wire in the 1000-yard freestyle. She dropped more than five seconds off her time from KU’s season-opening, double dual just four days ago to finish in 10:15.03. She’d later drop another five seconds while cruising to a win in the 500-yard freestyle (5:00.80).

Jenny Nussbaum made it an official streak when she claimed the 200-yard freestyle (1:52.78), with Yulya Kuchkarova claiming the 100-yard backstroke (56.74), Downey the 100-yard breaststroke (1:05.25), Bishop the 200-yard butterfly (2:04.86) and Taylor Sieperda the 50-yard freestyle (24.21) to run it to seven in a row before the diving break.

TCU’s Tyler Sides scored a 253.73 to top KU’s Amanda Maser (234.30) and a field of six to win the three-meter diving competition and temporarily stop the Jayhawk run. Sides later won the one-meter diving competition with a 253.23 to top her teammate Megan White (234.15) and Maser (217.73).

Kansas and TCU traded wins as Barker opened the middle session with a winning 52.75 in the 100-yard freestyle and Forzley out-dueled a trio of Jayhawks to take the top points in the 200-yard backstroke (2:03.28). Still, with the second through fourth finish, Kansas scored nine points in the event to TCU’s 10 and neared the clinching tally. Kansas rattled off five consecutive wins in the pool, including a 1-2 finish in the relay to close the meet.

The Jayhawks have topped three opponents in the last five days and will have a relatively long break – a week and a half – before travelling to Nebraska for its final dual of the fall. Kansas will clash with the Cornhuskers at 2 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 5th.

“It’s a good way to start, it’s better than being 0-3 – I’d rather go that route,” Campbell said. “It’s a really good gauge of where we are right now. We’re going to have a really tough opponent next week at Nebraska. They always swim at a very high level at home and we’re going to have to use a week plus – I’m excited to have a few extra days – to finish this week out and have a whole week going in. Hopefully we’ll go up there and perform even better than we did today.”

PRESS RELEASE – TCU:

LAWRENCE, Kan. – The TCU women’s swimming and diving team fell to the Kansas Jayhawks, 190-108, in the first Big 12 dual meet of the season on Thursday afternoon inside the Robinson Natatorium.

Frog Performances
Freshman Elise Forzley took home first place in the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 2:03.28. Forzley also earned second in the 100 backstroke and 200 IM with times of 57.24 and 2:08.96, respectively.

On the diving end, junior Ty Sides swept both diving events, recording the top scores of the day in the 1-meter (253.23) and 3-meter dives (253.73).

In the 200 breast, senior Ashley Dyke clocked in at 2:22.76 en route to a second-place finish in the event. Dyke also placed third in the 100 breast at 1:06.08.

Freshman Nicqueline Rettberg earned silver in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:54.71 before claiming third in the 500 freestyle (5:04.17).

Freshman Claire Munster recorded a third-place time of 53.21 in the 100 freestyle and also swam the final leg of the 200 medley relay (1:47.44) to barely edge out Kansas for second place. In the 50 freestyle, Munster earned third as she clocked in at 24.61.

Freshmen Hannah Burt and Gianna Caputo carried a heavy workload in the Big 12 matchup, swimming in three events each. Both took part in the 1000 freestyle, 200 breast and 200 IM.

Quote of the meet
Head Coach Richard Sybesma
“Kansas looked pretty sharp today. We learned a lot at this meet. We have to get better off the walls and better off turns. We now have a better idea on what we need to focus on to continue to improve every week.”

Up Next
The Horned Frogs (1-1) will return home on Friday, Nov. 4, to host Iowa State at the University Recreation Center for a 6 p.m. Big 12 dual meet.

 

AB

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About Lauren Neidigh

Lauren Neidigh

Lauren Neidigh is a former NCAA swimmer at the University of Arizona (2013-2015) and the University of Florida (2011-2013). While her college swimming career left a bit to be desired, her Snapchat chin selfies and hot takes on Twitter do not disappoint. She's also a high school graduate of The …

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