Nov. 20, 2009
Complete Results in PDF Format
IOWA CITY, IA- The University of Iowa women’s swimming team finished its first day of competition at the Hawkeye Invitational at the Field House Pool. The Hawkeyes faced Northern Iowa, Truman State and Western Illinois. After the first day of competition, Iowa is in first place with 96 points. Behind Iowa are Northern Iowa (94), Truman State (79) and Western Illinois (57).
“It’s just nice to be home and the final invite at this pool is special,” said Head Coach Marc Long. “It’s nice to race at home and a nice opportunity to see people swim different events. It was a good night.” The Hawkeye women started the competition with the 200 free relay. It was a close race between Iowa and Truman State but junior Caitie Polz swam the third length of the relay and pulled the Hawkeyes ahead. Polz teamed up with Senior Christine Kuczek, freshman Julie deBruin and junior Katarina Tour to take first-place with a time of 1:35.17.
Senior Verity Hicks continued the winning spirit in the 500 free. She had a good lead the entire race and took first place with a season best time of 4:59.01. Freshman Lauren Eytalis came in right behind Hicks with a time of 5:02.61, which was also season best time.
The Hawkeyes had some great swims in the 200 IM. Senior Katarina Tour swam a season best time and took first- place with a time of 2:03.11. Senior Julie Feingold also swam a season best time of 2:06.51 and took third-place. Junior Kelsie Neubauer had a fantastic swim and earned herself a collegiate best time of 2:07.82. The last individual event of the night was the 50 free. Kuczek took first place and posted a time of 23.82, which was a season best for her. Coming in behind Kuczek was DeBriun with a time of 24.05. Freshman Grace Borchers had a collegiate best time of 24.73.
The Hawkeye women concluded the meet with the 400 medley relay. It was a close race every length of the pool with Truman State but Truman State just touched Iowa out. Iowa’s team of senior Hilary Leigh, Tour, Borchers and Kuczek took second place with a time of 3:51.91, which was so close to beating Truman State’s time of 3:51.89.
“We had a lot of good races with the relays and the sprinters,” added Coach Long. “All and all we have some rusty areas that we need to work on, hopefully we can improve on for tomorrow. But we had some positive races as well in certain individual races.” Iowa will continue the competition tomorrow morning with prelims starting at 10 a.m., followed by finals at 6 p.m.