SHUHEI MATSUO
Assistant Sports Editor
The Pepperdine swimming and diving team traveled to neighbor Loyola Marymount Sunday and competed against the Lions and Cal State Northridge at the LMU Pentathlon.
The Waves won two of the three pentathlon events when freshman Danielle Kimmel and senior Alison McLeod won short and long pentathlons, respectively.
For this pentathlon, each swimmer entered one of the three competitions: the short medley, long medley or freestyle. Each competition included five races, with the swimmers’ times added from each of their five races. In each competition, the swimmer with the lowest time was the winner.
With a total time of 2:53.72, Kimmel’s top performance came in the 100 individual medley (IM), taking the top spot with a time of 1:01.22.
She also placed second in both the 50 free and 50 breast with times of 24.82 seconds and 30.59 seconds, respectively. The freshman Wave took two fifth places in the 50 fly (27.64) and 50 back (29.45).
Taking first place by almost 10 seconds with a total time of 6:11.82, McLeod set a new meet record as she recorded four first-place finishes. McLeod took first in the 100 fly with a time of 56.25, which puts her third in Pepperdine’s all-time best times and took the top spot in the 100 back with a time of 59.63. The senior also placed first in the 100 free with a time of 52.85 and the 200 IM with a time of 2:09.05. In the 100 breast, McLeod rounded out the top 10 with a time of 1:14.04.
Merely three weeks into this season, the Waves have already produced a school record and a meet record, which makes Head Coach Nick Rodionoff smile.
“We are way ahead of what I though we would be,” he said with a tone of satisfaction. “We’ve been doing a lot of swimming week after week, so they are a little tired but still swimming fast.”
Rodionoff has been coaching at Pepperdine for the past six years, but the experienced coach described this season’s swimmers as the “best team we’ve ever had.”
“I think personality wise, they are very down to earth, they are very athletic, they are having a good time,” he said. “Sometimes they work so many hours that they would get grumpy, but this group stays up most of the time. So far, it’s been a lot of fun.”
Rodionoff’s Waves return to action today at the Speedo Cup in Long Beach. With this two-day meet they will conclude their fall campaign. They will come back after the winter break and begin their spring season on Jan. 6, 2007 at the UC Irvine Invitational in Irvine.
11-16-2006
