Idaho swim and dive team fights through illness, injuries to finish sixth at WAC
Saying not everything went right for the Idaho swim and dive team Wednesday to Saturday during the WAC Championships in San Antonio would be an understatement, but the team and Idaho coach Mark Sowa didn’t use any of the illnesses or injuries as excuses.
File photo by Jose Bendeck | Argonaut
Junior diver Delaney Peugh competes in the diving events Oct.
11 at the UI Swim Center. The Vandals finished sixth Saturday at
the WAC Championships in San Antonio.
Sowa said three of the Idaho athletes got food poisoning and one of those three went to the hospital to get treated for it. All three fought through their illnesses and competed.
Senior Rachel Millet and junior Jamie Sterbis were also injured, Sowa said. He said it was confirmed the week before the team left for San Antonio that Millet had a torn tendon in her ankle. Sterbis hurt her shoulder on the first day of the meet during a swim-off in the 50-yard freestyle. Despite this, Millet and Sterbis fought through their injuries to compete.
Sowa said he was impressed with the way his team performed.
“It was just one of these things where taking one of those things is tough, putting all of those things together was incredibly tough,” Sowa said. “Yet, we were still in a position where we could have salvaged third place coming into (Saturday). I was so impressed with how these girls kept just picking themselves up, and they never used any of those things as an excuse.”
The Vandals took sixth out of eight teams in the meet. Northern Arizona won the WAC title for the second straight season.
“You never walk into a championship meet looking to get sixth place at all,” Sowa said. “I believe and truly believe that we have a championship-caliber team here … This program will not be sixth again, but I think we will learn a lot from this.”
Despite the sixth-place finish, the team turned in some top three finishes.
Idaho took second in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a team of Sterbis, senior Erica Anderson, junior Sami Hendricks and Millet. Anderson also placed second in the 50 freestyle, Idaho finished third in the 200 freestyle relay with a team of Anderson, Sterbis, Hendricks and Millet, and Millet took third in the 200 individual medley and the 200 freestyle.
Sowa said he was happy with how some of the freshmen performed and he’s confident heading into next season.
Freshman Christine Renzini took fifth in the 500 freestyle and 1650 freestyle and freshman Allie Magrino took fourth in the 200 backstroke and fifth in the 100 backstroke.
The diving team was highlighted by freshman Hailey Kessler who took eighth in the 3-meter dive and ninth in the B Final of the 1-meter dive. Fellow freshman Nikki Imanaka took 12th in the B Final of the 1-meter dive and 11th in the B Final of the platform dive.
Sowa said he wanted to send the seniors out with a WAC title, but he said the sixth-place finish isn’t what they are going to remember.
“They’re going to remember how they competed and what they did as Vandals,” Sowa said. “They revitalized this program, and that’s awesome. We did not take a step back tonight. If anything, we got better.”
Garrett Cabeza can be reached at [email protected]