Stanford Women 159, Wisconsin Women 130
On Friday, as a precursor to the top-10 matchup between the Texas and Stanford women, the Cardinal played host to Whitney Hite’s Wisconsin Badgers. This is the next incarnation of the annual pilgrimage that UW used to take to Arizona annually.
Wisconsin put up a good fight (with Stanford swimming exhibitions in the last three races) to keep the scoring close, but the Cardinal were clearly the dominant team here.
Sophomore Maddy Schaefer looks prepared early to have a breakout sophomore season, as she led off the Stanford 400 medley relay in 54.50 (just out-pacing Maya Dirado’s 54.51 on the B-Relay). She then went on to win the individual 200 free in 1:48.57 (again ahead of DiRado in 1:48.98) and the 50 in 22.81.
In that 50, she outswam Wisconsin’s Ivy Martin, who was 2nd in 23.08.
Despite that loss, the freestyles were the story of the day for Wisconsin. Senior Ruby Martin won the 100 free in 51.36, out-pacing her little sister, sophomore Ivy Martin (51.40), for the event victory. Those two also swam the first two legs of the Badgers’ 200 free relay which blew-away a Schaefer-less Stanford relay in 1:33.35 – giving them a two-second victory. Ivy again was impressive, splitting 22.60 on the 2nd leg.
Other good swims for the Badgers included the 200 back, where Hannah Ross won in 1:59.87. It would have been fun to see her show-down with DiRado who had a great swim the next day, but as it was she beat-out Stanford veteran Megan Fischer-Colbrie pretty handily (2:01.15)
The best race of the day was the 500 free, where Andie Taylor and Annemarie Thayer from Stanford got locked in a battle with Wisconsin freshman Colleen Konetzke. Konetze finished admirably to dig into the Stanford lead as much as she could, but ultimately it was the great 4th hundred put up by the women in red that took the day. Taylor won in 4:55.53, followed by Thayer in 4:56.54 and Konetzke in 3rd in 4:56.78.
Texas Women 151.5, Stanford Women 148.5
This meet was the big showdown of the weekend, and maybe for the first time, both teams let-loose with full lineups, best events, and some spectacular times. This meet started out very tit-for-tat: Stanford would put up a big swim, and then Texas would match it in the next race; Stanford would win 2, then Texas would come back and win 2.
The real turning point of this meet, though, was in event 13 out of 16, where sophomore Gretchen Jaques became the unlikely hero for the Longhorns. She’s a great breaststroker, and a great freestyler: this much we knew. But she showed in this race that she’s a phenomenal butterflier as well. She won in 54.08, which is a personal best, and that combined with Kelsey Amundsen’s 2nd-place swim (55.48) to put the Longhorns in control of this meet.
It then came down to the final relay: whoever won that would take the meet. As good as the potential is for Stanford’s 400 free relay (Maddy Schaefer anchored in 49.17), they’re still finding their way. Texas knows what they have, and they always find a way to swim faster than the sum-of-their-parts on these sprint relays, and they roared to a 3:19.07 win: the best time in the country this season. That included a spectacular leadoff from Jaques (49.98), followed by Bethany Adams (50.31), transfer Sarah Denninghoff (49.51), and Kelsey Amundsen (49.27). This is a relay to watch in March.
Prior to the excitement at the end, there was a lot of outstanding buildup in this meet. Stanford sophomore Annemarie Thayer won the women’s 100 back in 54.39, just beating-out Texas’ All-American backstroker Denninghoff (54.49). Thayer didn’t have a great freshman season, but is now within four-tenths of the time she went at last year’s Pac-12 Championships.
Maya DiRado, as alluded to earlier, had a fantastic 200 backstroke, winning in 1:56.70. Thayer was very good there as well, taking 2nd in 1:57.82, with Denninghoff 3rd in 1:59.07.
Full Meet Results Available here.
Cal Women 170, Wisconsin 110
The Cal Golden Bears continued to roll on Saturday. After knocking off Texas on Friday evening, they bettered the Badgers by 60 points on Saturday, despite exhibitioning all but event winners in 11 of the day’s 16 events.
Liz Pelton tore through another great day of swimming; the Cal 100 backstroke battle is shaping up to be just as interesting as everyone hoped it might be. After a Friday night 1-2 by Rachel Bootsma and Cindy Tran in 53.43 and 53.45, Pelton won the 100 back on Saturday in 53.46. Those are three out of the top four times in the country so far. One can only imagine how much fun Teri McKeever is having coaching that group right now.
In this meet, Caitlin Leverenz worked a little bit on her butterfly – something we saw a lot of from her over the summer. She won the 200 easily in 1:59.58, and followed that by taking the 100 in 55.19. In the latter of those races, she topped Wisconsin’s Rebecka Palm, who should be an NCAA qualifier in the event this year, in 55.93.
Rachel Bootsma, who first showed off her sprint freestyle speed on Friday, just barely hit the wall ahead of Ivy Martin by margin of 22.98-23.00 in another exciting 50 freestyle finish.
Does anyone know if Felicia Lee is taking a medical redshirt this season?