The USC women kicked off their 2014-2015 season Thursday night at with a convincing home win over Pac-12 opponent Washington State, 150-106. Competing under the lights at the Uytengsu Aquatics Center, four Trojan swimmers won at least two events apiece, led by triple winners Hannah Weiss and Andrea Kropp.
The Trojans opened the meet with four consecutive 1-2 or 1-3 finishes, beginning with the 200 medley relay team of Weiss, Kropp, Kendyl Stewart and Kasia Wilk winning by nearly three seconds in 1:41.89. Stewart, the USC school record holder and 2013 NCAA champion in the 100 fly, had arguably the most impressive split in the field, with a 24.37 fly leg.
Back-to-back 1-2 finishes in the next two events allowed USC to establish control early. Sophomore tandem Chelsea Chenault (10:11.16) and Maggie D’Innocenzo (10:17.51) earned the top spots in the 1000 free, followed by junior Jasmine Tosky (1:49.89) and Stewart (1:51.21) taking the reins in the 200 free. Chenault and D’Innocenzo would later duplicate their results in the 500 free, touching in 4:58.92 and 5:02.01.
Weiss kept the momentum going in the next event, earning her first individual win as a collegiate swimmer with a 53.91 100 backstroke, good for an NCAA ‘B’ standard and nearly three seconds ahead of second place. The true freshman from Mercer Island, Washington finished off her impressive evening with a solid 2:00.72 200 backstroke. These early season swims are a great sign for coach Dave Salo and USC; the Trojans were very strong in three of the four legs on both medley relays last year (particularly Kasey Carlson and Stewart), but lacked a backstroker to put them in title contention.
Washington State’s Frederikke Hall (1:05.12) crashed the party in the 100 breaststroke, clipping USC’s Jamie Christy (1:05.38) and Cougar teammate Presley Wetterstrom (1:05.39) to give WSU their first and only non-exhibition win on the night.
The Trojans responded with a 200 fly win from Andrea Kropp (2:03.60, not bad for a breaststroker), followed by back-to-back sprint freestyle wins from Kasia Wilk (23.06 and 51.48, respectively). Haley Rose Love (23.85) and Nicole Proulx (52.38) from Washington State were the runner-ups in those two events.
After Weiss’ 200 backstroke win, Kropp touched first again in the 200 breast (a much more familiar event) in 2:15.52. Jasmine Tosky, showing some versatility, took second in 2:16.11.
USC closed out the meet with three more wins: Kendyl Stewart in the 100 fly (54.66), sophomore Kelsey Kafka in the 200 IM (2:06.57, just ahead of Washington State Cougar Loree Olson’s 2:06.88), and Stewart, Tosky, Wilk and Evan Swenson in the 400 free relay (3:26.29).
The Cougars will be back in the water tomorrow with a dual meet against UCLA at 1 PM PST, while the Trojans are off until next weekend, where they will split their squads, sending a select group to the SMU Classic and the rest up to Corvallis, Oregon to take on Oregon State.
the team doesn’t have superstars, like Georgia, Cal, and Stanford, but there are a lot of quality and versatile girls on this team. Excited to see where the season leads!