Women’s swimming continues winning ways

Oct. 24, 2019, 12:23 a.m.

No 1. Stanford women’s swimming and diving (2-0, 1-0 Pac-12) claimed their second victory of the season against Washington State (1-2, 0-1 Pac-12) yesterday at home. The Cardinal swept the meet, winning 165-86 and extending their dual-meet winning streak to 31 straight victories.

Despite several swimmers sitting out due to injury or sickness, including junior superstar Brooke Ford, Stanford was able to handily win the meet. “Everyone who raced did a really good job,” head coach Greg Meehan said. “Unfortunately, we’re battling some injury and illness, and we’re looking forward to having our whole team competing. It was nice to see the swimmers in some off-events and put up some really good performances.”

Senior Katie Drabot had a standout meet, earning first place in three individual events and a relay. “Given the circumstances, I think we did a great job,” she said. “We’re still in hard parts of training, so given that and given the practices we’ve had in the past few weeks, we did a great job focusing on details, and the times will come later.”

Drabot dominated the 200-yard butterfly, stopping the clock at 1:56.79, eight seconds ahead of second-place senior Megan Byrnes (2:05.26). “I worked on taking it out smooth and strong, then pulling through on the back half,” said Drabot. “I’ve really been working on underwaters. I was able to play around with it a little bit, especially so early in the season, and the times will come, so I was working on sticking to a strategy.”

She also swam breaststroke in Stanford’s winning 200-yard medley relay (1:41.52), which barely out-touched the Stanford B relay (1:41.66). She then won the 100-yard freestyle, touching the wall at 50.45, followed by junior Lauren Green, with a 51.00. Drabot finished her day with another impressive win in the 100-yard butterfly, clocking in at 53.64.

Stanford won every other event as well, spreading the wealth to ten different event winners, demonstrating the team’s great depth. In the first individual race of the day, the 1000-yard freestyle (the longest event of the meet), Byrnes won by almost 19 seconds, coming in at 9:58.22.

Next, in the 200-yard freestyle, Stanford earned first, second and third place, led by junior Hannah Kukurugya (1:50.04), who was followed by freshman Emma Wheal (1:51.05) and junior Ashley Volpenhein (1:52.57).

In the 100-yard backstroke, Stanford earned first through third again. Sophomore Amalie Fackenthal hit the wall first with a time of 52.83. Freshman Alex Crisera came in second (53.50) and junior Katie Glavinovich touched third (56.31). Next, sophomore Zoe Bartel claimed the 100-breaststroke (1:02.48). In the 50-yard freestyle, Stanford swept again, with sophomore Anya Goeders coming in first (23.09), followed by Volpenhein (23.76) and freshman Kira Crage (23.95).

After the break, the team came back strong with senior Allie Szekely’s first-place 200-yard backstroke (1:58.08). Junior Grace Zhao battled it out for a victory in the 200-yard breaststroke, coming in with a time of 2:16.07, just before Washington State’s Lauren Burckel (2:16.91).

Finally, after the second break, Glavinovich won the last individual event, the 400-yard individual medley, touching the wall at 4:12.87 while second place trailed by five seconds. The Cardinal finished up the last event of the night by winning the 200-yard freestyle relay with a time of 1:32.29.

Stanford’s next meet is the annual Alumni Meet this Friday at 5:30 p.m. After that, the swimmers have a month-long break to train before the Texas A&M Art Adamson Invitational from November 21-23.

Contact Natalie Hilderbrand at nhilderbrand ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Contact Natalie Hilderbrand at nhilderbrand 'at' stanforddaily.com.

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