Arkansas Downs Kansas, Vanderbilt

FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas, February 1. ARKANSAS wrapped up two more regular season victories on Saturday afternoon with convincing wins over Vanderbilt and Kansas. The Razorbacks won 14 of 16 events, including NCAA Zone qualifying marks by divers Hannah Bortnick and Kesha Naylor.

Arkansas Press Release

The No. 22 University of Arkansas swimming and diving team (9-1, 3-1) swept Kansas and Vanderbilt at the Arkansas Natatorium during Saturday’s meet, which also served as Senior Day. Arkansas defeated Kansas 207-91 and Arkansas defeated Vanderbilt 203-83, with Razorbacks winning 14 of 16 events.

“We just tried to stay focused on what we were doing and really prepare for championships,” head coach Sean Schimmel said. “I’m certainly really proud of the team as a whole and the dual meet season as a whole in terms of how they stepped up each and every time and had some great performances all the way through the fall.”

Sophomore Hannah Bortnick (Mission Hill, Kan.) led the Razorback divers on a sweep of the three-meter springboards with an NCAA zone-qualifying score of 280.65. Senior Kesha Naylor (Saskatchewan, Canada) came in second with a score of 279.60, followed by sophomore Shelby Bartlett (Noblesville, Ind.) in third and junior Meghan Clark (Frisco, Texas) with the fourth-highest score.

Naylor won the one-meter diving event with an NCAA zone-qualifying score of 275.48 to round out diving for the Razorbacks.

The Arkansas ‘A’ team of sophomore Anna Mayfield (San Antonio, Texas), junior Nikki Daniels (Wichita, Kan.), junior Susanna White (Forest, Va.) and sophomore Nina Drolc (Velenje, Solvenia) won the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:42.20 to open the swimming portion of the meet.

Arkansas’ distance swimmers had a successful meet, beginning with Lauren Jordan’s win in the 1,000 freestyle. The junior from Carmel, Ind. finished with a time of 10:08.12, followed by sophomore Rachel Stoehr (Lake Forest, Ill.) in second in 10:24.46.

The Razorbacks swept the 500 freestyle, led by Mayfield in 4:52.86. Senior Nicole Menzel (Hilton Head, S.C.) touched the wall second with a time of 4:57.05, followed by Stoehr in third with a finish of 5:03.27.

Mayfield picked up her second individual event win in the 100 backstroke with a time of 55.12. Menzel also won two individual events in the 200 freestyle with a time of 1:51.21 and in the 200 butterfly with a time of 2:05.74.

White contributed two event wins to the Razorbacks with a time of 23.06 in the 50 freestyle and an NCAA ‘B’ cut time of 2:01.28 in the 200 individual medley.

The remaining individual event wins came from Daniels in the 100 breaststroke with an NCAA ‘B’ time cut of 1:01.96, from Drolc in the 100 freestyle in 51.15 and from junior Julia Banach (Eilat, Isreal) in the 200 breaststroke with a time of 2:20.47.

Arkansas ended the meet with a win in the 200 freestyle relay. The Arkansas ‘A’ team of Drolc, sophomore Maddie Monroe (Godfrey, Ill.), senior Shelby Cox (Little Rock, Ark.) and White finished the race in 1:34.50.

On Feb. 8-9, select Razorback swimmers will represent Arkansas at the Virginia Tech Invitational in Blacksburg, Va.

For more information on Arkansas swimming and diving, follow @RazorbackSwim on Twitter.

Kansas Press Release

The Kansas swimming and diving team went 1-1 in double-dual action Saturday afternoon at the Arkansas Natatorium, beating Vanderbilt, 163-130, while falling to Arkansas 207-91.

This was the second meet of a three-week competition block for the Jayhawks, now 7-4 in dual meets this season. KU used the momentum from last week’s win over Arkansas-Little Rock to improve their record with a win over Vanderbilt this weekend.

“We were better than last week, which was what we were going for,” head coach Clark Campbell said. “I thought we were still up and down and not quite where we need to be, but that’s where we are at in our training process. Swimming is tough because you can have a good week of practice and show up at the meet and not have good performances.”

Senior Morgan Sharp led the Jayhawks with eight individual points when she placed second in both the 200- and 100-yard freestyle races. Sharp finished with a time of 1:52.04 in the 200 free and set a new in-season best time of 51.67 in the 100 free. She also swam the fastest leg of the second-place finishing 200-yard medley relay team (23.79).

“We had a good week of practice this past week and I thought we had a solid meet today,” Campbell said. “The best thing is to keep pushing and keep training for the conference championships. Our results will start to get better once we get further into the season. It’s about the cumulative training that we do.”

The Razorbacks swept the competition, with senior Nicole Menzel taking first in both the 200-yard butterfly and freestyle races with times of 1:51.21 and 2:05.74, respectively. She also took second in the 500-yard freestyle (4:57.05).

“The competition level was high today,” Campbell said. “Both Arkansas and Vanderbilt are strong teams and they both performed well today. It’s good because you can use the competition to help you go faster. We need teams to push us so that we can get ready for the tough competition we will have at the Big 12 Championships.”

Adding to their performances were sophomore Bryce Hinde and freshman Pia Pavlic. Hinde took second place in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:23.51, while Pavlic was strong in the 100-yard butterfly with a second place finishing (56.98).

Other top performers for Kansas include seniors Sofiia Filatova and junior Deanna Marks. Filatova finished third for Kansas in the 100-yard backstroke (56.99) and fourth in the 100-yard butterfly (57.47). Marks finished seventh in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:08.82 and eighth in the 100-yard butterfly (58.61).

Vanderbilt Press Release

The Vanderbilt swim team concluded its regular season Saturday at the Arkansas Natatorium with losses to both Arkansas and Kansas. VU fell to Arkansas 203-85, and lost to Kansas 163-130.

KU defeated Vandy by a total of 33 points, 32 of which coming in diving, an event that the Commodores do not participate in.

The Commodores picked up two individual wins on Saturday. Freshmen Kayla Moran continued her great swims in the 100-yard butterfly, taking the top spot with a time of 56.83. Chrissy Oberg took the other first place finish in the 200-yard backstroke, touching the wall at 2:01.76.

Numerous season-best swims were clocked on Saturday, no one with more than Caroline Thomas. Thomas finished with season best times in both the 50 and 100-yard freestyles. She took third in the 50 free finishing with a time of 24.06, and took fourth in the 100 free with a time of 52.15.

In the 1000-yard freestyle, Kathryn Babbin finished with a season best time of 10:30.18, good for third in the event.

Vanderbilt took third in the 200-yard freestyle relay, finishing ahead of Kansas. The team of Thomas, Christina Wang, Hannah Martin and Moran touched the wall with a time of 1:36.86.

The Commodores will now have two weeks of training before the start of the SEC Swimming and Diving Championships. The championship, hosted by the University of Georgia, will begin February 18 and run through Feb. 22.

Results For: Kansas, Vanderbilt vs. Arkansas

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