In her first meet, freshman Jordan Anderson stood out, but the Utah women’s swim and dive team fell to No. 12 USC 138.5-112.5 on Saturday at the Ute Natatorium.
This was the first competitive meet of the 2015-16 season for the Utes. Utah was missing several key swimmers, including sophomore Maddie Meisel, who finished seventh overall in the 1,600-yard freestyle at the 2015 NCAA Championships.
With many key pieces absent, the Utes struggled to keep pace with the Trojans, a swimming and diving powerhouse. USC took first place in 10 of the 14 events, and after the 10th race — the 200-yard breaststroke — the Trojans went up 138.5 to 49.5, a whopping 89-point advantage. After that, the Utes went on a 63-point tear, while USC earned zero points the rest of the meet.
Utah was clearly shorthanded, and head coach Joe Dykstra knows there’s room for improvement. Instead of dwelling on that, he decided to focus on the positives that came from the first meet of the season.
“Obviously it was a pretty lopsided meet,” Dykstra said. “I’m proud of the way some of our girls raced, especially the freshmen. They really stepped up and showed us some stuff in their first real college dual meet. We were pretty significantly shorthanded today.”
“We have a lot of people out sick — it was not our full-strength lineup, and that was apparent,” Dykstra continued. “But I am proud of the way people stepped up to do more races than they would need to or different races that they would need to when we are in full strength.”
One swimmer who stepped up for the Utes was Anderson, who hails from Granite Bay, Calif. The speedster placed first in the 500-yard freestyle (with a time of 5:03.98), second place in the 200-yard individual medley and finished third in the 1,000-yard freestyle.
Dykstra heaped praise on Anderson following the meet.
“[It was her] first dual meet, I put her in three of the hardest races in the meet, the thousand, the 500 and the 200 IM, and she was a real standout in all of those. It’s a great start to her career,” Dykstra said.
Anderson, Kat Wickham and Maryssa McArthur placed first, second and third, respectively, in the 500-yard freestyle. Jenna Marsh, Petra Soininen and Sydney Bull also swept in the 100-yard butterfly, while the Utes continued to finish strong in the 200-yard individual medley when Brianna Francis placed first, Anderson second and Isabella Kearns third.
The Utes also won the 400-yard freestyle relay, but they had dug themselves too big of a hole at the start to upset the Trojans, despite the late rally.
Dykstra said the Utes need to improve on “self discipline on race details” before Utah’s next meet.
“We were not very good with some of the technical aspects,” Dykstra said. “Being disciplined enough to not breathe coming off of the wall, or taking too many breaths on the last 25 of a race. Little things like that, having the self discipline to push through what hurts, to get those extra tenths of a second.”
Utah is home for their annual Alumni Meet on Oct. 10 at 9:30 a.m. MDT before heading to Berkeley, Calif. to resume Pac-12 competition.
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