Competing in back-to-back meets, Idaho swim and dive had a tough weekend in Colorado. The Vandals lost to Air Force 131-169 on Friday at Colorado Springs and on Saturday, the team lost to WAC foe Denver University 125-173, while beating Colorado School of Mines in Denver.
In addition to facing road opponents on back-to-back days, the Vandals also had the challenge of swimming at a higher altitude. Denver — the Mile-High City — lives up to its name in the altitude department. Colorado Springs is even higher with an altitude of more than 6,000 feet.
“We knew we had a challenge ahead of us,” Idaho coach Mark Sowa said. “Going to altitude is never easy…We knew that going in. We like challenges.”
The Vandals won seven events against Air Force: two each between junior Paige Hunt, sophomore Rachel Millet and freshman Jamie Sterbis and one by senior Kelsie Saxe. Idaho struggled early in the meet and improved as the meet progressed, but it wasn’t enough to knock off the Falcons.
“Unfortunately, we came out a little flat against them,” Sowa said. “We fought a good fight. We tried to get back into the meet. We had some really good races, but Air Force swam very well.”
Hunt dominated the diving boards for Idaho, winning the one-meter dive with a final score of 250.43. She also won the three-meter dive with a score of 260.25 to sweep the diving events for the Vandals.
Millet’s victories came in the 200-yard freestyle in 1:54.44 minutes and the 200-yard IM in 2:08.28.
Sterbis continued her impressive season in the butterfly, sweeping the event with wins in the 100-yard butterfly (57.92) and the 200-yard butterfly (2:08.06).
Saxe impressed in the 100-yard breaststroke, winning with a time of 1:08.14.
“Overall it’s hard to be pleased with a loss but I really am pleased with how they turned things around and put ourselves in a position to be a very good team,” Sowa said. “We just ended up coming up on the short end of the stick.”
The Vandals went right back into competition the next day, where they fell to Denver University but beat Colorado School of Mines in Denver. Neither opponent was coming off a meet the prewvious day.
“This was the first time we swam back-to-back meets,” Sowa said. “It’s important for us to do that because the WAC Championship is over the course of four days. So it’s really important for us to get up and race again on the second day…I felt like we performed better on Saturday than we did on Friday.”
Millet notched three more individual victories on Saturday to bring her total to five for the weekend. She won the 100-yard butterfly (57.00), the 200-yard freestyle (1:59.92) and the 50-yard freestyle (23.84) in Denver.
Junior diver Mairin Jameson also surprised, when she scored 291 points to win the three-meter dive. Sowa said the one-meter dive is usually her better event. Jameson’s performance qualified her for the prestigious NCAA Zone Meet.
“I felt really good about how we competed (in Denver),” Sowa said. “We’re working on staying focused and concentrating when we’re tired. Everybody is tired, that’s not an excuse. It’s how you deal with fatigue which really can tell you how you’re doing.”
The Vandals come back to Moscow this weekend to battle Northern Arizona Saturday, Nov. 10 in their last home meet of the semester.
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]