By Hailey Amato
Staff Writer
The Pepperdine women’s swimming and diving team has faced some steep competition in recent weeks. The Waves were back in action in a three-team meet at Raleigh Runnels Memorial Pool Saturday. Pepperdine emerged with a win over Loyola Marymount University and a loss to rival University of San Diego, the defending Pacific Collegiate Swimming Conference champions.
The Waves also competed in the University of California, Irvine Daktronics Invitational Jan. 4-5, facing some of the nation’s top swimming schools.
“Especially for just coming back from winter break I think everyone had strong performances,” sophomore Lauren Krueger said, referring to Saturday’s meet. “We are setting up to train hard for conference and this meet was a good starting point.”
The team has reached a point in the season where conference starts looming upon swimmers. It can be a difficult and awkward time, Head Coach Nick Rodionoff said.
“This is always a hard meet for us, coming off of break and what we call our boot camp, our training over Christmas break,” Rodionoff said. “At this point in the season there are going to be a lot of good swims like we saw on Saturday and a lot of bad swims. It is just a period they need to work through as we look to the end of February and conference.”
The Waves saw standout swims from many team members. Freshman backstroker Ketrina Lemmon came close to setting a school record in the 100-meter backstroke.
“I was really happy to inch closer to my personal best times,” Lemmon said. “I think backstroke is an area where San Diego is weak. With our swimmers we have a chance to really dominate that part of the meet next time we face them.”
Rookie Nicole Okuna continued her spectacular freshman season with wins in the 100 yard and 200 yard butterfly.
Also winning her event was freshman Megan Kelly in the 100 yard freestyle.
“The team is really building and everything is just coming together for us,” junior breaststroker Stephanie Hammond said. “You can tell that everyone is working her hardest and pulling for her teammates. There is a lot of team spirit right now.”
As normal, the Waves’ diving team was dominant in Saturday’s meet. With no divers competing for the visiting teams, Pepperdine had a chance to work on perfecting dives before conference, freshman Gina Warren said.
“Since we had no opponents, it was like we were competing against ourselves,” sophomore Maggie Lane said. “It’s definitely harder to push ourselves. It feels more like practice, but that isn’t the right mindset to have. We want to try to challenge ourselves each time we go to dive. We’re focusing on details, consistency and execution.”
The Waves look forward to facing USD again at conference and expect to reach their goal of a top-three finish, Hammond said.
The Pepperdine swimmers and divers returned early from Christmas break for extra practices and one more meet before the new semester began.
“Christmas break was a really great time to focus on swimming with the campus to ourselves, and without the distractions of class,” Lemmon said. “We did different kinds of workouts, more dry land and swimming with shoes and pants on to create drag.”
After a week and a half of these practices, Pepperdine traveled to Orange County to compete in the UC Irvine Daktronics Invite.
On day one of the invitational, senior Michelle Barker won the three-meter diving competition with 413.75 points. Warren came in eighth and Lane finished in 12th.
On the swimming side, Okuna once again took the No. 1 spot in the 100 butterfly with a time of 58.26.
Pepperdine’s freshmen were a strength in the 50 yard freestyle race, clinching three spots in the top 20. Kelly was 12th with 25.17, Lemmon was 17th and Okuna rounded out the group in 20th.
Kelly had an impressive performance in the 200 individual medley, finishing with a time of 2:12.24 for sixth. She also was 11th in the 100 freestyle and 18th in the 200 freestyle.
Hammond came in 11th in the 200 breaststroke in 2:29 and swam a 1:09.69 to grab 14th in the 100 breaststroke.
Pepperdine had other top 20 finishes from freshman Lauren Velarde who would up 17th in the 200 breaststroke, and Lemmen, who nabbed 18th in the 100 backstroke.
The Waves are next hosting Cal State Northridge in dual meet action on Saturday at 11 a.m.
January 16, 2003
