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Sports

Swimming, diving teams go separate ways

Swimming team competes in Ohio as diving team hopes to build on last year's success

by Jong Lee
The Daily Cougar

The Cougar swimming and diving teams are competing in two different events this weekend. The swimming team is in Oxford, Ohio, this weekend for the Miami (Ohio) Invitational, while the diving team is in Austin for the Texas Invitational. Both meets began Thursday and will end Saturday.

The diving team started the 3-meter preliminaries at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. Only the top eight divers will advance to the finals. The competition will be among 11 universities: Stanford; Florida; UCLA; Wisconsin; Arizona State; Wyoming; University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Texas Christian University; University of California-Santa Barbara; Hawaii; and Washington State.

The Cougars had a strong showing in Austin at the same event last year. Senior Anna Kiess finished with 246 points, good for fourth at the invitational. Former Cougar Tania Cagnotto was the only diver at the event to exceed the 300-point mark, winning by a margin of nearly 40 points. Sophomore Anastasia Pozdniakova won the 1-meter springboard and finished sixth with 220.1 points. Senior Rachel Gitelson finished 10th with a score of 172.2.

The swimming team started its meetat 6 p.m. Thursday with the 800-yard freestyle relay and the 1,650-yard freestyle. This will be the first time the swimming team has seen competitive action since the Nov. 3 and 4 Phill Hansel Duels. The swimming team is set to compete against Cincinnati, Cleveland State, Denison, Emory, Marshall, Oakland, Truman State, Milwaukee University-Wisconsin and Wright State.

The swimming team finished eighth out of 13 teams last season at the Miami Invitational. Sophomore Sasha Schwendenwein won the 500-yard freestyle on the last day of the event with a time of 4:59.15 -- less than a quarter of a second ahead of second place. Sophomore Andrea Pa'lmai broke a school record last year in the 400-yard individual medley and took second in the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:05.7. Pa'lmai also finished third in the 200-yard backstroke in the championship finals.

The three-day event will conclude on Saturday. The Cougars will take 28 days off before their next competition Dec. 30 in the Hawaii Relay Meet in Honolulu.
 

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