Iowa City, Iowa—The Indiana State swimming and diving team finished up day one of their first Missouri Valley Conference Championships this evening in Iowa City.
Only two events took place, the 200 medley relay and 800 freestyle relay, and the Sycamores competed strong in each one.
Energy on the pool deck and in the stands was high and the all freshmen squad seemed to embrace the exciting atmosphere as they prepared to compete.
ISU came off the blocks hot with
Kendall Hansen,
Alex Malmborg,
Jacquie Price and
Blanca Saez-Illobre setting a new school record in the 200 medley relay with a time of 1:44.91. This time defeated the previous school record by four seconds.
This put Indiana State in fifth place to start off the MVC Championships.
"Being in our first Missouri Valley Conference Championships there's always going to be a learning curve. We came out really well in the first relay and set a new school record and finished fifth, so we couldn't be happier with the start to the meet. That 200 medley relay squad did a great job and set us up well," said head coach
Matt Leach.
Following this event all teams had a 30 minute break to prepare for the final event of night one, the 800 freestyle relay.
Indiana State came out strong yet again.
Cierra Campbell,
Courtney Skelley, Price, and Saez-Illobre swam hard for the entire event. Unfortunately the Sycamores were disqualified after a false start error occurred.
"We let our nerves get to us a bit and disqualified that second relay. Coming into this meet for us was all about making sure we don't leave any points in the pool, and tonight we did. The great thing is the first night only accounts for 15 percent of the points and you get the majority of your points from each day here on out."
The Sycamores will be back in action tomorrow for their first full day of competition with preliminary heats in the morning and finals in the evening.
ISU will face off with the rest of the Valley in the 500 freestyle, 200 IM, and 50 freestyle during day two of the championships.
"We're looking forward to tomorrow and leaving these events behind us and coming back and doing really well. All in all it's the first MVC Championships ever for this group and I'm really proud of these girls and looking forward to seeing how we respond to adversity," said Leach.
Go Sycamores!
