Three top-15 women’s teams kicked off their seasons on Friday night with big dual meet victories against less-credentialed employees.
Stanford Women 167, San Jose State 125
Freshman Maddy Schaeffer began her college career with two individual wins for the Stanford Cardinal. She began with a win in the 100 back, an off event, in 57.70, as well as the 100 free in 51.26. The latter of those swims gave Schaeffer the win by over a full second in her collegiate debut, though sophomore teammate Sara Giberson posted a solid 52.38 for 2nd.
Stanf0rd sophomore Maya DiRado got her season off to a good start with a win in the 100 fly (56.13). That race isn’t going to be her primary event this year (she finished top 3 in both IM races last year at NCAA’s), but we saw some great early swims from her this year. Her weakest stroke in the IM’s last year was the breaststroke, but Dirado split a 30.5 on Stanford’s winning medley relay in this meet, which was the 2nd-fastest (and best Stanford) split of the meet. It’s not going to solve their medley relay problems, but it will make her that much better in her top two events.
We knew coming into this season that breaststroke would be a weakness for Stanford, aside from freshman Katie Olsen, who was absent Friday. That played out in this meet as the Cardinal’s only two losses were in the two breaststroke distances. There, San Jose State’s Kristen Trammell put up times of 1:04.99/2:23.02 to grab double wins.
Felicia Lee also got her early season well-on-track after a bit of a stumble at NCAA’s last year. She won the 500 free in a great time of 4:55.2. Andie Taylor earned double wins in the 200 IM (2:04.08) and 200 fly (2:02.02), though the latter of those times could have been a touch faster.
Stanford next swims when they play host to the George Haines Invitational on October 14th and 15th. No official lineup for that event yet, but Cal does not have it on their schedules this season.
LSU Women 193, Tulane Women 98
This LSU women’s team is shaping up to be a strong one, as was demonstrated by their dominant performance against intra-state foes Tulane on Friday. LSU was without Pan American Games team member Amanda Kendall, who had a breakout summer, but that gave their other swimmers a chance to shine.
Sara Haley had a big meet for LSU. The school record holder in the 200 fly took a win in that event in 1:59.51, which makes her the first collegiate swimmer in the country to clear the two-minute mark, and also makes her the first woman this year to clear an NCAA “B” standard in any event. She would also win the 500 free in 4:59.00. And to cap her night off, in a relay lead-off swim, Haley swam a 52.04, which is a lifetime-best performance for her.
Simply put, new LSU coach Dave Geyer didn’t simply get “lucky” with the development of Jane Trepp and Amanda Kendall last year; rather if he can ramp up the recruiting, his coaching skills seem to indicate he may be building a new SEC power down in Baton Rouge.
Speaking of Geyer’s recruits, freshman Amber Carter, an overlooked freshman out of Houston, had a very good debut for the Tigers. She won the 100 fly in 57.28, which is her best time ever in a non-taper meet. That race is by far her best even, though, and Geyer’s challenge will be to develop her other races (likely a sprint free). Her classmate Kaetlin Sepp also won her first collegiate race, the 100 back, in 57.66.
The top recruit in the group is Marre Niemi out of Finland. She didn’t have a great debut in her freestyles, but in the medley relay split a 29.5 on the breaststroke leg to show a glimmer of her potential. It will be interesting to see what she does in that 100 breaststroke when she gets her first chance to swim it.
LSU lost their best diver from last year, Rebecca St. Germain, on a transfer to Texas A&M, but freshman Alex Bettridge kicked things off with a great mark of 318.00 on the 1-meter.
LSU will be back in action October 14th and 15th, as they sweep through the sunshine state with duals against Florida State and Florida.
Tennessee Women 194.5, UNC-Wilmington 105.5
The Tennessee women kicked their season off on the road against UNC Wilmington on Friday afternoon. The Vol’s were swimming off events, but still managed to break four pool records at the hands of their two stars Jenny Connolly and Lindsay Gendron.
Gendron, who can swim every freestyle event 50-through-1650 (she did it literally at NCAA’s last year), had her best swim in the 100 free with a 51.00. Individually, she’ll trend more towards the longer events as the season wares on, but she’s a big anchor piece for the Tennessee relays. She also took a win in the 100 fly (56.20). That’s a great time for her, considering that she doesn’t seem to have every swum the race before, officially, in short course (she has no results in the SWIMs database). She picked up a third victory in the 200 IM in 2:05.08. Fun fact about Gendron: She’s won at least two events in every dual meet of her collegiate career so far.
Connolly, who is an NCAA contender in both the 100 back and 100 fly, swam the 200-yard versions of each in this opening meet. She put up times of 2:04.22 (back) and 2:03.74 (fly), the latter of which is the better of the two marks. She’s unlikely to swim either of the longer races at NCAA’s, but this is an interesting training strategy for Tennessee coach Matt Kredich. Come March, his senior will have to swim the 100 back and 100 fly with a very short gap in between, and sort of over-training it by practicing on the 200 yard distances could help her body prepare for that.
UNC-Wilmington, though the score was a bit lopsided, showed that they could put together a nice program with a very veteran squad. They actually swept the relays (not by Tennessee exhibition, the Seahawks literally got their hands to the wall first). They were led by senior Anna Munger, who took runner-up position in both the 100 free (52.42) and 100 fly (57.24).
The Tennessee women will take an interesting break today (that more and more college teams seem to be getting into for early-season meets) as they swam the UNCW Open Water swim this morning at 8AM. Their next inter-collegiate event will be the Orange-White dual meet on October 14th.