Swimming and diving team has strong opening


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The USC swimming and diving team swept its first invitational this season against Cal State Northridge and Cal State Bakersfield in a two-day competition Friday and Saturday that tackled events across the board.

The women’s team placed first, second and third in every race, while the men’s team took gold in every event. The inaugural USC Invitational was hosted at the McDonald swim stadium, where the pool was adjusted three times across the two-day competition to create a 50-meter long-course pool, a 25-meter short-course pool and a 25-yard short-course pool, ensuring competitors could dip their feet in to a variety of races.

“The challenge of the weekend was represented in the three different courses that we swam and having the athletes swim the same events over each course, and what we saw was each swimmer getting faster throughout the weekend,” men’s assistant coach Jeremy Kipp said.

Highlights on the first day included many Trojan debuts versus Cal State Northridge’s Matadors. Freshman Haley Anderson smashed the competition in her 800-meter freestyle, winning by solid 16 seconds with a time of 8:59.53. Freshman Lili Shiota led the women’s field in the 100-meter backstroke with a time of 1:06.46. Freshman Clement Lefert won 100-meter butterfly by three and a half seconds with a time of 55.27 seconds and snagging his first NCAA “B” cut, which put swimmers in consideration to get invited to the NCAA championships.

Veteran Trojans also played a role in USC’s weekend success, with senior Zoltan Povazsay taking gold in the 200-meter freestyle in a time of 1:55.96 minutes. Sophomore Katinka Hosszu scored three NCAA B cuts Friday in the 200-meter freestyle, the 100-meter fly and the 200-meter individual medley., a significant performance for this early in the season.

Senior women’s captain Krissy Forelli was excited by the potential the team showed so early in the season.

“The team has been working so hard in training so it was really great to see everybody swim through the pain; the freshmen especially stepped it up,” she said.

Friday’s session saw USC’s men’s team down the Matadors, 80-66; the women won 80-64.

The second day proved just as successful for the Trojans, who swept every event in both short-course yards and short-course meters. Anderson once again showed off her distance skills by taking first in the 800-short course meters freestyle (8:48.19) and the 1,000-yard free (9:55.79).

“They combined the men’s and women’s 1,000 to save time, so Haley Anderson had to swim with the guys and she stayed with them, it was so cool,” Forelli said.

NCAA B cuts were snagged across the board by freshman Jessie Schmitt and junior Dillon Connolly both in the 100-yard breastroke, as well as freshman Yumi So in the 100-yard butterfly and the 100 scm. butterfly. Hosszu scored her fourth B cut for the season in the 200-scm freestyle.

In the scm events, USC’s men sunk CSUN, 106-57, and CSUB, 95-70. USC’s women beat CSUN, 103-60, and CSUB, 104-59.

For short-course yards, USC’s men defeated CSUN, 105-51, and CSUB, 91-72. The Women of Troy beat CSUN, 99-62, and CSUB, 102-61.