Feb. 19, 2015
Hello Wolf Pack Swimming and Diving Fans,
What a day!
The end of the story is that we're sitting in third place with 216 points: Boise and San Diego are ahead of us with 275 and 268, respectively. And UNLV is behind us with 140.
The beginning of the story is that prelims started late this morning because three different starters malfunctioned. Emma Payne (freshman), Briana Peterson (freshman), and Jocelin Drennan (senior) were all in the first heat of the first event - the 500 free. Throughout the delay, they stayed calm and sophomore Erin Fuss ran onto the bulkhead to bundle them up in towels and parkas. When they finally got to swim, they started it out right earning huge season records. For example, Emma dropped from 5:13 to 4:55. Their tenacity was the spark the team needed to swim the best top-to-bottom prelim session I've seen at Nevada. All in all, seven swimmers and both divers qualified for finals.
Tonight's finals began with the 200 Free Relay. Emma led off in 23.43 which is the fastest 50 of anyone on the team this year. Jaeger Turner (freshman) and Yawen Li (junior) both split 23.34, and Michelle Forman (senior) brought it home in 23.45 for 9th place and 1:33.56 which is four tenths faster than we were last year. After that relay, we fell to 4th place just one point behind Wyoming.
The team headed to the diving well where Krysta Palmer won another gold medal and Wendy Espina (freshman) finished 7th. Wendy's finish was especially inspiring because it showed her determination in bouncing back from her disappointment yesterday.
Last year we had only one swimmer score in the 500 Free, but this year four swimmers scored: Riley Hilbrandt (sophomore, scoring for the first time at the conference championship) and Michelle Forman (senior) finished 14th and 16th respectively. Sita Kusserow (sophomore) finished 5th in 4:50.32 and Josefin Eriksen (freshman) had a monster swim to win the bronze medal with 4:47.55. On a side note, it was cool to have one person from each class represent Nevada in finals.
Nevada earned another load of points with the 200 IM in which we had three finalists. Ary Medina (sophomore) finished 5th and split a blazing 33.71 in the breaststroke portion of the race. Teresa Baerens (sophomore) tied the previous school record of 1:59.16 and earned the bronze. Yawen Li set a new school record of 1:57.59 and took home gold. Having three swimmers in the top 8 is a new experience for our team and our girls (and parents in the stands) really rocked the natatorium with their cheering.
I could go on and on about the tenacity of the team and how proud I am of their fighting spirit. We're going to race our hearts out again tomorrow as we try to reel in San Diego and Boise.
Onward we go...
Battle Ready, Battle Born!
Abby Steketee, head coach
