In their first and only dual meet of the season Pepperdine swimmers and divers earned a commanding 207-57 victory against Cal State Northridge on Saturday afternoon at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool. Senior Haley Wilson led the way with four first-place finishes as the Waves collectively won 13 of 14 swimming events.
Wilson’s first victory came in the 200-yard medley relay in which she swam anchor and wrapped up the race at 1:48.50 for the Waves. She then took the gold in the 200-yard freestyle finishing with a season-best time of 1:55.83 the 100-yard freestyle (53.59) and the 200-yard individual medley (2:10.99).
Freshman Madison Krall also had a big day placing first in both the 1000-yard (10:41.15) and 500-yard (5:13.27) freestyles. She later swam third leg in the 400-yard free relay and together with junior Ali Chester and sophomores Kelly Donovan and Tanya Thomforde clocked in at 3:42.35 for first place.
Krall said she prepared for the dual meet by studying the strengths and weaknesses of her opponents in advance.
“My dad and I did a lot of research about the other team beforehand to see where the girls I would be swimming against swam Krall said. I just look into the other girls on the team and get ready to swim fast and know that I have to do as best as I can regardless of who’s coming and how fast they are.”
Other top performers for Pepperdine included sophomore Jenna Sheeley who edged out fellow sophomore Wave Kayleen Hicks for first place in the 50 free with a time of 25.61 and junior Brianna Blanchard who notched a pair of second-place finishes in the 1000-yard and 500-yard freestyles. Blanchard’s times in these races were 11:03.23 and 5:17.55 respectively.
Head Coach Nick Rodionoff said he was pleased with his team’s ability to bounce back after it struggled at the UCI Invitational on Jan. 3 and 4 when he felt his swimmers were a bit slow out of the gates due to previously being away from campus for Christmas break.
“It’s like trying to start a whole wholnew season in January Rodionoff said. Emotionally it’s hard to get back into it [and] physically it’s hard to get back into it so this was a real good indication that we’re back on track.”
With conference championships less than a month away Pepperdine will host the PCSC Time Trials on Jan. 31.
“We’ve definitely kicked it up a notch in practice and everybody’s been working really really hard Krall said. So I feel like at the invite in two weeks we should be right where we need to be and that we should be ready to do really well at conference.”
Rodionoff said the upcoming meet will determine for Pepperdine which of its 34-member squad it will send to the PCSC Championships on Feb. 18.
“We can’t probably take more than 16 swimmers [to the championships] so it’s going to be tough to decide who’s going to be able to go Rodionoff said. So that time trial will decide it.”