The West Florida women’s swimming team had a strong start to its 2014-15 season on Thursday at the UWF Aquatic Center, as the Argonauts went 1-1 against a pair of Division I opponents. UWF topped North Florida 175-87 and fell to Vanderbilt 141-113.
The meet included several highlights for UWF, as the team totaled five event wins. Freshman Nicole Machado (Belo Horizonte, Brazil) claimed the team’s first win in the 100 backstroke, winning with a time of 57.97. Peggy de Villiers (Somerset West, South Africa) also placed first in her first individual race, the 50 freestyle. Her time of 24.10 was UWF’s first individual NCAA B-cut qualifying time of the year.
“It was great to get a couple event wins today with Nicole and Peggy,” said UWF head coach Andrew Hancock. “Nicole won her very first individual collegiate race, so that was good. We were also able to hang with some excellent competition in a lot of the other events. We were a lot less intimidated today than we were in our season opener last year against some big schools, and the results showed that.”
Along with de Villiers in the 50 free, the Argos also posted an NCAA B-cut time in their first race of the day, the 200 medley relay. The team of Machado, Anna-Marie Macht (Markkleeberg, Germany), Emily Mitchell (Allen Park, Mich.) and de Villiers finished with a time of 1:46.84 and placed second in the race.
UWF also placed first among the scoring swimmers in the 100 butterfly and 200 individual medley and the 200 freestyle relay. Mitchell claimed the win in the 100 fly with a time of 1:00.62, and Macht won the 200 IM at 2:11.23. The 200 free relay team included de Villiers, Mariana de Paula (Santos, Brazil), Danica Burnett (Perth, Australia) and Mitchell, and the team posted a time of 1:40.40.
Another highlight of the day came in one of the distance events, as freshman Madeline Pitt (Trussville, Ala.) placed fourth in the 1000 freestyle with a new school record time of 10:32.22.
The West Florida divers competed in exhibition events at the 1 and 3 meter heights. Josie McKee (Canton, Ohio) placed first in both events, scoring 253.95 at 1 meter and 253.50 at 3 meters. Meghan Zets (Grovetown, Ga.) placed second in at both heights with 221.10 and 1 meter and 208.65 at 3 meters.
The Argos will be back in action on Oct. 25 as the divers head to Pennsylvania for the Clarion Diving Invitational. Next on the schedule will be a road meet at Tulane on Nov. 1. For information on all UWF athletics, visit www.GoArgos.com.
College Swimming News courtesy of West Florida.
