SHUHEI MATSUO
Sports Editor
The Pepperdine women’s swimming and diving team had another success at the weekend’s Big West Shootout in Irvine, posting eight personal records and, more importantly, making it to the championship pool for the first time in history of the program.
The Waves finished second in their qualifier to advance to Saturday’s championship Friday. Even though the Waves finished last at the four-team event, Head Coach Nick Rodionoff said it was big that the team made it to the “elite group.”
“We swam against Hawaii and BYU (Brigham Young University), the ranked teams, for the first time,” he said. “We got beat but not by much. We had some real good swims. So for the third meet, we are good.”
Freshman swimmer Kayleen Hicks showed an impressive performance at Saturday’s 200-yard breaststroke final with a third-place finish and a time of 2:23.14. She swam and took over the second-fastest time in Pepperdine history, after her teammate sophomore Danielle Kimmel’s 2:22.29, which was set last season.
Hicks said she wasn’t having a great weekend, but she wanted to make sure she would change her attitude at this particular event because she hadn’t swam that distance in a while.
“When I swam it, I had all these people cheering for me. My friend Jazz had her family there, and they were all in my face cheering for me,” she said. “And it was mostly the mental aspect where I turned my attitude around.”
After she dove into the pool, everything felt really good, she said.
Four other Waves also posted personal bests Saturday. Senior Loriann Mark and sophomore Brianna Blanchard set personal-bests in the 1,000-yard freestyle with 10:42.83 and 10.51.97, respectively, while freshmen Franny Cyphers and Jessell Owens each set a new personal record in the 200-yard butterfly with 2:08.73 and 2:20.45, respectively. Another freshman Rachel Williams went 59.86 in the 100-yard freestyle for her personal best.
Pepperdine had three swimmers set personal bests Friday as well. Cyphers set a new mark in the 400-yard Individual Medley with 4:38.44, while Blanchard finished with 18:01.33 in the 1650-yard freestyle, and junior Michelle Fadley set her best time in the 400-yard IM with 4:44.03.
The Waves will conclude their fall action when they compete at the Speedo Cup, which starts Nov. 15. After this three-day meet in Long Beach, the team will only practice until the UC Irvine Invitational on Jan. 6.
Although the team will not be practicing during the winter break, Rodionoff has a strategy to begin the spring season strong.
“The concept is that they are going to be tired enough where the rest is going to be recovery,” he said. “Hopefully, they will train enough so that they don’t have to start over again.”
11-08-2007
