Colorado State vs Northern Colorado
- January 27, 2024
- Fort Collins, Colo.
- SCY (25 yards)
- Results
Courtesy: Colorado State Athletics
In the same way a dual isn’t about one individual race, Senior Day isn’t about the moment.
Rather it is an accumulation of a career, especially a final season more than the acknowledgement in a pre-meet ceremony.
“I think it’s been a real honor to be captain, and I’ve learned a lot. Being part of this team this year has been my favorite swim memory of all time,” Lucy Matheson said. “This has been amazing. This was exactly what I needed in my swimming career. I don’t think I would have been able to finish without being surrounded by these amazing coaches and amazing girls. I think by being here in Moby everyday with the support has been amazing.”
Competition is also about winning, and the Colorado State women’s swimming and diving team did plenty Saturday at Moby Pool, taking down rival Northern Colorado by a comfortable margin, 194-105. The team finishes the season with an 8-2 dual mark.
Winning became contagious, as the Rams won both relays and 10 individual races overall. Matheson put it best when it came to her class and the way they felt.
“I think I’ll remember the emotions of the day the most, but winning never hurts,” she said.
Which she did twice, capturing both the 100- and 200-yard butterfly races. She was one of four Ram double winners, as freshman Tess Whineray took both the 100 and 200 backstrokes, sophomore Lexie Trietley the 50 and 100 freestyles and sophomore diver Maggie DiScipio led on both the 1- and 3-meter boards.
Junior Erin Dawson set the pace in the 200 freestyle, while graduate student Sydney VanOvermeiren edged out Dawson for a 1-2 finish in the 200 individual medley.
Both of Whineray’s wins led to 1-2-3 finishes for Colorado State, with teammates Rachel Saxon and Sophia Hemingway following behind, each with a runner-up finish and a third-place showing.
For Saxon, the day was meaningful, but pales in comparison to her overall experience, especially with her eight other classmates in mind.
“For me, probably senior year has meant the most. I feel it wasn’t my breakout year, but I had some hard things going on within sophomore and junior year,” she said. “Sophomore year I had my surgery, and junior year gave me some comeback moments. It was hard. I didn’t think I was going to cry, then in that moment when everyone was up, I was like, this is real. It hit a really weird point.
“It’s definitely been really special in that we gained some and lost some. We came in freshman year, and it was weird because of covid. It was fun to be able to really grow with them, and we really stuck together pretty well.”
Which the team did exceptionally well against the Bears.
This isn’t an easy time of year. The yardage is adding up in practice, the plates in the weight room. It’s also cold-and-flu season. What coach Christopher Woodard hoped he would see, he did.
“We wanted to be prepared for (UNC), and maybe expected them to punch a little bit harder, but my major concern with their performance was going to be coming off a higher volume week, a tough week where most of them are either recovering from illness or sore from the weight room,” he said. “They were still able to show up and race and perform on the boards well.”
Even at this point, a couple of Rams narrowly missed taking down Moby Pool marks.
As Matheson noted, Moby isn’t exactly a fast tank, the month of January is a bit rough overall. Add in the altitude, nothing about the day suggested fast times were in store, but that shouldn’t discount wins. Woodard has seen his teams consistently improve at the Mountain West Championships the deeper they get into the meet, and to do so requires a bit of a mental edge.
Watching the way her teammates went after races and finishes, Matheson was encouraged. So was Saxon.
“Today we really pulled it out hard. Training, Woody never really let up on us at all, especially last week when we had our meet,” Saxon said. “We didn’t really get any rest at all. Watching everybody be able to fight to the end of it, I think everybody did a good job of that. It’s encouraging. It’s easy to be able to swim just to swim and go fast. It’s important to watch everybody fight and race to beat the person. That will be really good for conference.”
Courtesy: Northern Colorado Athletics
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – In the final tune up before competing in the Western Athletic Conference Championships, Northern Colorado swimming and diving dropped a 194-105 result at Moby Pool Saturday.
Martina Yuki Trionfetti, Maria Erokhina, Payten Irwin and Ali Jackson opened the meet with a second-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay. Trionfetti, Saana Liikonen, Kyra Rabess and Ali Jackson placed second in the 400-yard freestyle relay, the final race of the contest.
Rabess won the 1000-yard freestyle in a time of 10:24.08 and took the 500-yard race in a time of 5:03.41.
Elizabeth Mayer touched the wall third in the 200-yard freestyle.
Erokhina posted a winning time of 1:03.31 in the 100-yard breaststroke, while Sunna Svanlaug Vilhjalmsdottir took third. Erokhina swept the breaststroke events with a time of 2:17.76 in the 200 and tacked on a third in the 200-yard IM.
In the 200-yard butterfly, Ellyson Lombardi and Irwin stopped the clock a second a part in silver and bronze positions, respectively. Irwin added a second in the 100-yard butterfly, while Katelyn Bergin collected a third.
Ali Jackson added a third-place finish in the 50-yard freestyle, while Trionfetti equaled the result in the 100-yard freestyle.
On the 3-meter springboard, Kyriana Chambo claimed the silver position.
NEXT MEET: The Bears head to Edinburg, Texas, – hosted by UTRGV for the 2024 Western Athletic Conference Championships Wednesday, Feb. 28 – Saturday, March 2.