The West Virginia Mountaineers kicked off their 2015-2016 season by winning their 5th-straight West Virginia State Games. The meet, which the school hosts, is part of a run of 6 home events in 8 days.
The team’s lone returning NCAA qualifier from last season, Andrew Marsh, won 5 of his 6 individual events across three sessions of swimming.
The biggest victory came in his best event, the 100 fly, by almost a three-second margin on runner-up Chase Williams (52.31). That’s Marsh’s best event, and one in which he placed 24th at NCAA’s last season.
Other Marsh victories (in swim order):
- 50 free – 20.90
- 100 back – 49.09
- 200 back – 1:50.59
- 100 free – 46.22
He’s the Mountaineers’ best chance at cracking into the scoring at this year’s NCAA Championships, with the challenging being finding a way to be fast enough to qualify for the meet without burning his full taper – he added three-tenths from his qualifying time at NCAA’s last year. So far, he’s on pace to do just that, with his time from Friday morning a full second better than he was at the same meet last season.
West Virginia won every event on the day, something head coach Vic Riggs noted in his post-meet comments. “We had some very strong swims from both our upperclassmen and freshmen,” said Riggs. “I was impressed with the focus and adjustments from last week.”
The team’s first dual meet will come next weekend when they take on Georgia Tech as part of Big 12 vs. ACC weekend.
