Utah handles Idaho, Vandals to focus on WAC
Athletes always want to win the last game of the regular season, especially at home.
The Idaho swim team was unable to make this happen as they lost to the Utah Utes 153-88 Saturday at the UI Swim Center.
Nathan Romans | Argonaut
Freshman diver Maren Seljevold warms-up for the exhibition diving event after the conclusion of Idaho’s 153-88 loss to Utah Saturday in the UI Swim Center. Idaho will compete in the WAC Championship Monday, Feb. 23, in San Antonio, Texas.
The Vandals now have a week to prepare for the WAC Championships, which begin Monday in San Antonio.
“We’re a very even-keeled team,” Idaho coach Mark Sowa said. “We don’t worry about morale at all. I think we’re an emotionally very steady team, so we love good competition, and Utah’s a very good team, but so are we.”
Utah won 10 out of the 13 events at the meet. Idaho won the 500-yard freestyle with freshman Christine Renzini, the 50 breaststroke with senior Laura Griffing and the 200 freestyle relay with a team of seniors Kirah Monks and Erica Anderson and juniors Jamie Sterbis and Sami Hendricks.
“I think if we swim these guys at a different time of year, we match up much better than we do today,” Sowa said.
Even in the loss, Sowa found some bright spots in the meet, including sophomore Tori Papke.
“Tori is really starting to come around a little bit and we’re going to need her in the end,” Sowa said.
Papke helped her 200 medley relay team to a third-place finish, finished third in the 100 freestyle and finished second in the 200 individual medley.
Nathan Romans | Argonaut
Freshman diver Hailey Kessler warms-up for the exhibition diving event after the conclusion of Idaho’s 153-88 loss to Utah Saturday in the UI Swim Center.
“Overall, I think I swam alright and some girls swam really well, so I was really happy with it,” Papke said.
Papke said she likes competing against tough teams.
“It kind of brings us to the level of them,” she said. “It’s always good to swim against a faster team.”
Sowa said his main goal of the meet was to get healthy and stay healthy after the meet, so he accommodated the lineup to help achieve his goal.
“Obviously, we want to win a meet, but we want to be great in a week and a half from now,” he said in regard to the WAC Championship.
Sowa said he is not sure what his lineup will look like at the conference championships.
“We’re going to try and win a championship,” he said. “Not quite sure what it’s going to take to do that yet, so we’re going to figure it out. We still have some decisions to make on some kid’s events and we still have some decisions to make on some relays … It’s an inexact science, but that’s the fun part, the strategy behind it.”
Sowa said his team will focus on rest this week in practice. He said his team has been dealing with illness, so the main focuses this week is getting healthy and working on speed.
“The work’s been done, so we’re not going to change much of that,” Sowa said. “But the more rest that we can get, the more speed we’ll develop and these girls will come around. We’ll be there in the end.”
Garrett Cabeza can be reached at [email protected]