STANFORD, Calif. – For the second straight season, the Stanford women’s swimming and diving team notched a fall victory against Utah, this time by a score of 177-112 over the visiting Utes at Avery Aquatic Center on Friday afternoon. The Cardinal won 12 events and had the top time in three other exhibition swims.
“It’s only our second meet, but we put together a fairly good lineup because we don’t race for another five weeks,” Stanford head coach Greg Meehan said. “We needed to see some things and I was really impressed with our senior leadership. Allison Brown, Sarah Haase, Jaynie Pulte, Julia Ama and Julia Anderson all had good performances and set the tone.”
Brown won the 1,000-yard (10:05.89) and 500-yard freestyles (4:55.54), Haase took the 100 (1:00.84) and 200 breaststrokes (2:13.91) and Pulte anchored Stanford’s 1:32.87 200 free relay (23.42), finished third in the 50 free (23.89) and had the third-best time in a 100 butterfly exhibition (56.82). Ama won the 50 free in 23.12 while Anderson finished third in the 200 free (1:53.55) and fourth in the 500 free (5:07.48).
The Cardinal quartet of sophomore Ally Howe, Haase, sophomore Janet Hu and junior Lia Neal won the 200 medley relay (1:40.01). Junior Grace Carlson won the 200 free (1:48.49) and freshman Kim Williams took the 200 fly (2:01.09).
“We have a good balance of senior leadership with really talented underclassmen as well,” Meehan added. “We’re not really focused on how fast we’re going, but we’re focused on great effort and good details in our racing. We’ll take this and we’ll go back to work for another five weeks and get ready for Texas A&M.”
Hu took the 100 backstroke in 53.26, the 200 back in 1:56.56 and also had the best time in the 100 fly (53.45). Lia Neal won the 100 free (49.43) and was also a part of Stanford’s 200 free relay, which had a top time of 1:32.87.
Sophomore Gracia Leydon-Mahoney won the 3-meter dive with a score of 317.55 and had the second-best score in the 1-meter competition (272.85). Freshman Ella Eastin’s 2:00.09 was the fastest 200 individual medley of the afternoon.
Stanford will have five weeks before its next meet at the Texas A&M Invitational in College Station, Texas.
“We really believe in good work,” Meehan said of his team’s focus during that time. “We’re not necessarily a gimmicky team in terms of how we train. We do good, solid work and have really good details in that work. That will be the focus. They all have individual things they’ll take during that period, but as a coaching staff, we’re going to go back to work and continue to get better over this time period.”