By Jordan Parry, SDA Media Relations
The Arizona State men’s (0-3) and women’s (2-1) swimming and diving teams wrapped up their first home meet of the season Saturday afternoon, as they faced the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels and the Denver Pioneers from Mona Plummer Aquatic Center in Tempe, Ariz. The ASU women and men came out with mixed results from the meet, with the women grabbing two wins while the men dropped two.
On the women’s side, ASU comfortably beat both opponents. In a closer matchup, the Sun Devils overtook Denver by a score of 163.00-131.00. Against UNLV the margin was wider, beating the Runnin’ Rebels 198.50-98.0.
The men, on the other hand, came up short in both contest. They fell to UNLV by a final score of 192.00-105.00, as well to Denver, 175.00-124.00.
The women got the day started off right with a win in the 400 Yard Medley Relay, which they finished in 3:46.63. That’s all the momentum they needed to keep it rolling throughout the afternoon.
Tristin Baxter then went on the win the next women’s event, the 1000 Yard Freestyle, with a time of 10:10.88. She won by just under five seconds over second-place.
Melanie Busch and Tory Houston both finished the day with two first-place victories. Busch took first in the 100 Yard Backstroke with a time of 55.30, and also the 50 Yard Freestyle, finishing in 23.28 seconds. Houston took first in the 100 Yard Breaststroke with a time of 1:05.03, while also taking the top spot in 200 Yard Breaststroke. She finished that swim in 2:19.61.
The women had seven individual victories on the day; the other two top finishes came from Juanita Barretto in the 100 Yard Freestyle and Lori Layne Kremer in the 200 Yard Butterfly.
For the men, Alex Coci took first-place in the 100 Yard Butterfly with a time of 48.55, beating second-place by .43 of a second. He was the only male for ASU to capture a victory.
Sun Devils swimming and diving is back in action in two weeks, once again in front of their home crowd in Tempe. They face USC on Friday, Nov. 8, at a time to be determined, and UCLA on Saturday, Nov. 9, at 1:00 p.m. PT.