Lady Aggies Dominate Hurricanes

CORAL GABLES, Florida, January 6. THE fifth-ranked Texas A&M women's swimming team earned a 123-76 decision over the Miami Hurricanes in the third annual Matt Gribble Invitational at the Norman Whitten Student Union Pool on Saturday morning.

The Aggies (6-0) won all 11 swimming events, including both relays. A different A&M swimmer won each of the nine individual races, while the Aggies finished first and second in both relays.

"Considering the amount of work we're doing right now, I am real pleased with how they girls performed today," A&M head coach Steve Bultman said. "Our distance races were very solid considering our training. We split up our relays and had some good races there as well."

Senior Rebecca Sturdy (Anacortes, Wash.) competed on both winning relays in addition to winning the 100-yard butterfly in 56.35. Sturdy teamed with sophomore Julia Wilkinson (Stratford, Ont.), freshman Alia Atkinson (Pembroke Pines, Fla.), and freshman Sarah Woods (Birmingham, Ala.) to lead off the meet with a win in the 200-yard medley relay (1:43.84). Sturdy anchored the winning 200 freestyle relay, also made up of junior Megan Rains (Puyallup, Wash.), Woods, and junior Chelsea Helgason (Olympia, Wash.), to a time of 1:36.28.

Junior Jenni Stratton (Portland, Ore.) won the first individual event of the day, the 1,000 freestyle. Stratton hit the wall in 10:11.06 while sophomore teammate Sally Ranzau (Alpharetta, Ga.) was second in 10:15.01.

Megan Rains and sophomore Marissa Jasek (San Antonio) both posted identical times of 52.40 to lead a 1-2-3 A&M finish in the 100-yard freestyle.

A&M's sophomore class accounted for five of the nine individual wins against the Hurricanes. Triin Aljand (Tallinn, Estonia) won her signature event, the 50 freestyle, in 23.27, an NCAA ‘B' standard. Codie Hansen (Arlington) led a 1-2-3 A&M finish in the 200 freestyle, hitting the wall in an NCAA consideration time of 1:50.00. Kristen Heiss (Casper, Wyo.) cruised to a four-second win over freshman Melissa Hain (Kingwood) in the 500 freestyle, recording a time of 4:55.80. Julia Wilkinson continued her undefeated streak in the 200-yard individual medley this season with a win in 2:05.73.

A pair of freshmen won events for A&M in the first winter training trip of their collegiate careers. Alia Atkinson, currently ranked third nationally in the 100-yard breaststroke, won that event easily in an NCAA consideration time of 1:03.50. Emily Neal (Plano) grabbed a win in the 100-yard backstroke in 56.72.

The Aggies will continue to train in Miami through Tuesday before returning to College Station in preparation for a busy upcoming dual meet schedule. A&M will face No. 8 in SMU in Dallas next Saturday in one of its most anticipated dual meets of the season. The Aggies will also compete against North Texas, Houston, and LSU in the next two weeks before focusing on the Big 12 Championships which will be held in College Station on Feb. 14-17.

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