Oregon State hosted the Stanford Cardinal on Friday afternoon. In the Cardinals first road contest of the year, they were victorious, 170-88, winning all but 3 events in the 16 event meet line up.
Stanford kicked off the Friday afternoon with a 1-2-3 finish in the 200 medley relay (only the top two relays scored). The A team comprised of Annemarie Thayer (26.27), Sarah Haase (29.02), Felicia Lee (24.46) and Maddy Schaefer (22.11) finished in 1:41.86, just over the B team.
Katie Olsen, as the breaststroke swimmer on the B relay, split sub-29 at 28.73.
Sammy Harrison for the Beavers won the 1000 freestyle easily. She finished in 9:53.08, over Stanford’s Tara Halsted at 10:07.29. Harrison is one of OSU strongest swimmers, holding three team records for OSU.
Harrison also won the 500 freestyle at 4:51.98 over Nicole Stafford (4:58.62). The 1000 and 500 freestyle races were the only two individual wins for the Beavers against the Cardinal.
DiRado just touched out Schaefer in the 200 freestyles. DiRado had the strongest final 50 to finish the race at 1:47.64 over Schaefer’s 1:47.78. Olympian Lia Neal was third in 1:51.09.
Thayer added to her relay win, with a win in the 100 backstroke in 55.89. Freshman Frace Carlson was second for the Cardinal in 55.42 and OSU had a top three finish in Amani Amr in 56.53.
After splitting the best in the medley relay, Olsen finish first in the 100 breaststroke in 1:03.00. Haase was second in 1:03.38 and Crystal Kibby from Oregon State was third.
Lee is looking poised to have a great final season for the Cardinal. In her first individual event of the day, she easily won the 200 butterfly. Her final time was 1:58.89, three seconds better than her teammate Halsted.
Halsted had a win of her own, later in the meet, in the 200 backstroke at 2:00.56.
Lee came back to win her second event in the 100 freestyle in 49.95. Lee made it a perfect three for three individually winning the 200 IM in 2:01.61.
Between Lee’s wins, was the 50 freestyle. Julia Ama had the event in 23.57 and finished second in the 100 freestyle in 51.06. Lia Neal was second in the 50, 23.80.
Making a sweep of the breaststroke events, Olsen had the 200 breaststroke in 2:17.48. DiRado swam the event also, and was second in 2:17.48.
Kibby for the Beavers was third again in this breaststroke event in 2:22.92.
Mackenzie Stein cruised to a win in the 100 butterfly at 55.92. The other Cardinal swimmers competed as exhibition races, and as well in the 400 freestyle relay.
Notably, Neal lead off the A relay for Stanford and split 49.54 – faster than Lee’s individual 100 freestyle win from earlier in the meet. Plus on the B relay, Schaefer in the second leg split a 48.98.
This Stanford team seems hot and cold right now…there are some girls swimming fantastically (felica lee)and others who are not swimming at their true caliber level (Julia Anderson 1:53???)
Their freshman class is a lot deeper than I had thought, halsted is going to be the diamond in the rut I think. If Nicole stafford would start doing some fly and 200 frees she would be great too. Grace Carlson hopefully will get back on her horse and lia Neal’s 100 free is very encouraging. Can’t wait to see them up against teams like Cal and USC.
Neal will need a great 200 too; she seems to only get after it when she’s rested and she has a lot to learn about swimming the event consistently–I think her 50 will actually come later; I’ve always thought she was a 100/200 swimmer but Gregg needs her for all three and a maybe a future 100FL–just some thoughts
Maya DiRado is ready for a big final college season.
I hope she will finally win her first individual title in the 400 IM.
She deserves it after so many second or third places.