BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA (September 24, 2016) The gold team defeated the purple team, 76-66, in the annual Purple and Gold Intrasquad meet on Saturday at the LSU Natatorium.
“On the women’s side from the swimmers, we saw them try to really work and improve on things from yesterday, so I was excited about that,” said LSU swimming coach Dave Geyer.
“Some of the splits on relays and some of the times we saw were faster than yesterday, so it’s just that adaptation to racing which is good from day-to-day. On the men’s side, with the format we had, it gave us the opportunity to see what our relays potentially could be. I think we had some great individual swims in there. For our three freshmen guy swimmers, it’s their first short course racing experience. For them to get accustomed to that was beneficial, and we’ll just move on from here with our process.”
The gold team jumped out to an early lead as the relay team of Brandon Goldman, Garrett House, and Tyler Harper took first in the men’s 3 X 50 medley relay, earning a time of 1:11.54. Goldman and House also tallied victories in the 200 back and the 200 breast, finishing with times of 1:49.12 and 2:05.01 respectively.
On the women’s side, the 400 medley relay team of Sophie Weber, Olivia Paskulin, Lia Joslin and Kate Zimmer claimed first place with a time of 3:50.59 to open the meet for the gold squad. Weber tacked on more first place points for the gold team, earning a win in the 200 back, finishing at 1:59.99.
For the purple team, Angele Cherbonnier, Gabrielle Pick, Leah Troskot and Hannah Martin took first in the 200 free relay with a time of 1:36.66. Kara Kopcso, Summer Spradley, Sophia Bisch and Makenna Wilson also earned another relay victory in the 400 medley 4 x 100 IM relay, wrapping up the event with a time of 3:58.73.
Nicole Rozier secured a victory in the 200 back, completing the event at 2:09.23.
On the men’s side, Sven Saemundsson, Lewis Clough, Logan Rysemus, and Will Arthur finished first in the 400 free relay with a time of 3:05.43 for the purple squad.
Clough tallied another victory, garnering a win in the 200 free with a time of 1:41.27. Rysemus also earned an individual event win in the 100 fly with a time of 48.00.
Saemundsson and Alarii-Levreault Lopez both earned victories in the mixed events. Saemundsson took first in the mixed 1000 free with a time of 9:31.14, and Lopez finished first with a time of 1:51.49 in the mixed 200 fly.
The diving portion of the meet was highlighted by the performances of sophomores Rileigh Knox and Matthew Phillip.
“What we did was a very non-traditional diving format, but it gave us an opportunity to compete some of our dives in an environment where we have the support of the swimming team and we can interact with all of that,” explained LSU diving coach Doug Shaffer.
“Matt Phillip really stood out on platform, and Rileigh put together a really solid performance all the way through. Those two won their respective events in a non-traditional diving format.”
