By Jessica Jimenez — Staff Writer
San Jose State women’s swimming and diving had its home opener at the new Spartan Recreation and Aquatic Center Saturday, where it swept the University of the Pacific and UC Santa Cruz.
The team finished the Saturday meet with 210 points. Pacific had 184 points and in third place UC Santa Cruz with 66.
SJSU senior Katie McIntee is thrilled about the win at the home pool
“Honestly I’m just giddy,” said McIntee. “I’ve been off campus for three years so to just have my first home meet of the season in this beautiful facility means everything to me.
The meet began with the 200-yard freestyle medley relay with sophomore Shelby Mullendore, freshman Rebecca Petoe, senior Antoinette Loya and McIntee coming in for a first place finish with a final time of 1:46.77.
For the 1,000-yard freestyle, UOP senior Brigid Mcnally came in first place clocking in at 10:33.09. Not too far behind her was SJSU senior Erin Wayman, placing second at 10:35.57, shedding nearly five seconds off of her time since the Oct. 19 meet.
Three Spartans placed in different positions in the 200-yard freestyle.
McIntee came in first, touching the wall at 1:53.35. Sophomore Daria Cool finished fourth at 1:55.12 and senior Kate Hanff had a fifth place finish at 1:57.10.
Petoe placed first for the 100-yard breastroke clocking in at 1:04.38, taking off two seconds of her time since the last meet.
Spartan senior diver Natasha Sodeno scored a 259.65 in the one meter dive as well as a 267.15 in the five meter dive, sweeping both events.
Freshman Anna Jabs placed fourth for her three-meter dive with 179.55 points.
Competing in the 200-yard butterfly, senior Jacqueline Nisson placed second touching the wall at 2:12.88.
Both slicing seconds off of their times, freshman Lea Marion swam the 200-yard breaststroke placing first at 2:20.49 and sophomore Chloe Limargo came in second at 2:20.80, just 31 milliseconds difference.
The old spartan pool was called the snake pit because when opponents entered it they got bitten.
“Everyone who entered got beat,” said Marion. “We want to keep that going for this year and this win is a great start to that.”
Hanff swam into first place for the 200-yard IM clocking in at 208.88 for the Spartans.
Closing out the meet, SJSU’s two relays had first and second place finishes coming in at 3:31.08 and 3:38.30.
Many Spartans took seconds off of their previous times, improving quickly and had 12 first-place finishes for the day.
Head coach Sage Hopkins visualizes the team improving for the remainder of the year.
“We got a lot of great data out of this meet, out of the past two,” said Hopkins. “In this point we are just refining and really honing in on how we want to race”
The team will head down to USC for the Trojan Invitational for a two-day meet starting on Friday, Nov. 8-9.
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