Tulane vs. Louisiana State

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana, September 30. LSU opened up the 2011-12 campaign by sweeping all 16 events against Tulane on Friday at the LSU Natatorium.

The Lady Tigers defeated the Green Wave by a margin of 193-98, en route to opening up the season 1-0.

"It is good to have our first women's dual meet and see us walking away with a victory," swimming coach Dave Geyer said. "There is definitely some things we need to work on and we need to start fine tuning our races as we approach our NCAA ranked opponents. It was a good first step for us. We saw some things that we didn't see last week. It is that next step."

Freshman diver Alex Bettridge shined in her collegiate debut and emerged victoriously in her two events. She scored a 318.00 in the one-meter competition and a 268.57 in the three-meter competition.

"I feel like they rose to the occasion," diving coach Doug Shaffer said. "We love having Tulane down here. It is really early in the season and I honestly did not know what to expect. We're beat up, sore and tired. They did what I asked them to do, and that was to compete."

"We had some really performances for where we are in the season. Alex got both her NCAA Regional Diving scores and SEC qualifying scores in her first collegiate dual meet. Her three-meter performance was roughly 20 points off the school record. Elle Schmidt posted a solid performance as well. I'm happy with that."

Junior Jana Ruimerman posted a lifetime best time of 10:20.74 in the 1000-yard freestyle and took first. Ruimerman's performance bodes well for the rest of the season because the Lady Tigers have been looking for a strong distance swimmer for some time.

"We talked about it before the meet and the last time that she swam the 1000 free was when she was about 15 or 16," Geyer said. "She's one of our stronger trainers when we came down to it, and a light bulb went off in my head this week to give her the trial run and we ran with it. She's going to have to swim this event a couple times through out the season for the team, and that is what is most important."

Junior Sara Haley posted two first place finishes in the 200 butterfly (1:59.51) and the 500 free (4:59.00), as well as being a part of two first place relay teams.

"Haley is definitely on in her 200-yard butterfly and the 500 free," Geyer said. "We expect that. We have another intercollegiate program in here and we expected to show more cleanliness.

Senior Samantha Goates swept the sprint freestyle competitions and cranked out a 50 free time of 23.87 and a 100 free time of 52.44.

Sophomore Torrey Bussey earned two victories in the 100 breast (1:04.30) and the 200 individual medley (2:04.90). Her 200 IM time was over four and a half seconds faster than her closest competitor.

Freshmen Kaetlin Sepp and Amber Carter emerged victoriously in their first ever collegiate competitions. Sepp notched her first victory by winning the 100 backstroke with an impressive time of 57.66. Carter posted a time of 57.28 in the 100 fly and almost won the event by over 2 seconds.

The Tigers will resume competition in two weeks as both teams travel to Florida Oct. 14. Both squads will first head to Tallahassee to take on Florida State at 2 p.m. (CT) and then to Gainesville the following day to take on LSU's first SEC foe of the season, University of Florida, at 12 p.m. (CT).

The above article is a press release submitted to Swimming World Magazine. It has been posted in its entirety without editing. Swimming World offers all outlets the chance to reach our audience by contacting us at Newsmaster@swimmingworldmagazine.com. However, Swimming World reserves the right to choose what material is posted.

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