PULLMAN – Washington State swimming took down Northern Arizona with a 181-80 win in Pullman.<\/p>\n
For the third time in two weeks, the Washington State swim team welcomed an opponent to Gibb Pool and sent them home with a loss. The Cougars hosted Northern Arizona Saturday morning, defeating the Lumberjacks, 181-80. WSU took first place in 12 of 14 events en route to the victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team has been working hard,\u201d Cougar Head Coach Tom Jager said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been trying to stay consistent and that\u2019s what they were today. They want to be great and they\u2019re trying to do everything in order to accomplish that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junior Loree Olson led the Cougars in the dual, contributing 27 points to the Cougar total. The Rocklin, Calif., native took first place in all three of her events, including the 100 back (57.25), the 200 back (2:03.79), and the 400 IM (4:31.21).<\/p>\n
Freshman Hannah Bruggman led the Cougars in the freestyle sprints, notching first-place finishes in the 50 free (23.55) and 100 free (52.71). Fellow freshman Rachel Thompson added victories in the middle-distance events with top finishes in the 200 free (1:54.20) and 500 free (5:06.02). Thompson out-touched sophomore Elise Locke in the 200 free, who finished .61 seconds back from the freshman. Bruggman and Thompson contributed 18 points a piece to the Cougar point total.<\/p>\n
In the 200 breast, junior Presley Wetterstrom clocked a time of 2:19.43. Wetterstrom added a second-place finish in the 100 breast (1:05.29) and a third-place finish in the 400 IM (4:34.98). Fellow junior Frederikke Hall took first place in the 100 breast, out-touching Wetterstrom to finish in 1:05.25.<\/p>\n
In total, six Cougars notched first-place finishes against the Lumberjacks, including freshman Anna Brolin in the 100 fly (56.10). Brolin also helped the 400 medley relay team (Olson, Hall, Brolin, Alison Mand) clock a first-place time of 3:48.79.<\/p>\n
Junior Kendall Brown and freshman Alina Staffeldt posted victories on Saturday, but the Northern Arizona swimming & diving team fell to Pac-12 foe Washington State, 181-80, to come away with a weekend split for their trip to the Northwest.<\/p>\n
“Yesterday’s meet took a lot out of us and Washington State is a really good team,” said head coach Andy Johns. “Even if we had swam as well as we did yesterday, it’s a closer meet. That’s what this trip was about though. It was about a tough turnaround against tough competition and our girls competed with the right attitude and gave great effort. We’re ready to get back to training and get better.”<\/p>\n
The teams did not compete on the diving boards today with Washington State not fielding a diving squad. That left the dual meet with 14 swimming events, with the Lumberjacks winning two. Brown won the 1,000 freestyle for the third time this season, leading an NAU one-two finish with senior Caitlin Wright. Brown posted a time of 10:19.79 and Wright followed a time of 10:24.22, three seconds faster than the Cougars’ top finisher in the third. Staffeldt picked up her third victory of the weekend \u2013 and fifth in three dual meets this season \u2013 with a 2:05.15 finish in the 200 butterfly.<\/p>\n
Wright (500 free), senior Alexis Juergens (100 fly) and Brown (200 IM) posted runner-up finishes while freshman Melanie Harris recorded a pair of third-place finishes as NAU’s top swimmer in both breaststrokes. Other top NAU swimmers picking up third-place finishes was junior Eva Pold in the 200 free, Juergens in the 50 free, freshman Roni Houck in the 100 free and freshman Claire Hammond in the 200 back.<\/p>\n