By Jordan Parry, SDA Media Relations
TEMPE, Ariz.--The Sun Devil swimming and diving teams got back in the water for the second-straight day on Saturday, this time finding mixed results. On the men’s side, they swam their way to their first win of the young season, edging Air Force, 158-142. The women, squaring off against a Pac-12 opponent for the second-straight day in UCLA, suffered a second loss in as many days, 183-113.
ASU’s men’s relay team had much to do with team’s first victory, a notion of enforcing unity to achieve success. After winning the 200-Yard Medley Relay to begin the day, they closed their day by swimming a combined 1:22.77 200 Freestyle Relay, closely edging out an Air Force team by .17 of a second. Richard Bohus anchored the Devil Relay team, covering ground and passing his opponent in the final stage of the race to secure the victory.
It wasn’t just the swimmers, though, but divers too. Riley McCormick brought in 18 points himself and crushed his competition in both the 1-Meter Dive as well at the 3-Meter Dive. McCormick scored a 368.00 in the 1-Meter, 96.40 points higher than second-place. He improved in the 3-Meter, besting all opponents by 127.15 points as he went on to score a 418.90.
Barkley Perry collected two first-place finishes of his own, his coming in the 200-Yard Freestyle (1:41.20), as well as the 200-Yard Backstroke (1:49.51). Zac Dalby made it a trio of men’s Sun Devils to finish the day with two wins, going on to take first in the 200 Fly (1:50.40) and the 200 IM (1:51.64).
Tristin Baxter for the women matched her three male teammates in wins and replicated her success from Friday, taking first-place by swimming a 9:59.17 in the 1000-Yard Freestyle and 4:52.19 in the 500-Yard Freestyle. She showed off her ability to swim long distances at fast paces, finishing her sweep of those two events in two days by crushing the field and winning her last event by almost four seconds.
Additionally, Alex Popa and Tory Houston took home first-place finishes of their own. Popa won the 100 Breaststroke, swimming a time of 1:04.02, and Tory Houston actually tied with Ashley Tse from UCLA in the 200 Breaststroke, when they both swam the distance in 2:18.09.
The swimmers and divers from Arizona State will take a long break from competing in their home pool in Tempe, as they head on the road until Saturday, January 4th, when they face Oregon State. They next travel to Las Vegas, Nevada for the UNLV Fall Invite on Nov. 21st.