In an era of college sports where highly recruited freshmen are relied upon to be the stars of the team in many cases, it was the senior class that led the Idaho swim team in the pool many times during the 2014-2015 season.
Junior swimmer Jamie Sterbis leaps into the water as she begins the 200 yard butterfly during Idaho’s 210-90 win against Grand Canyon Jan. 24 in the University of Idaho Swim Center.
Seniors Erica Anderson, Rachel Millet and Kirah Monks will leave Idaho with multiple school records to their names.
Idaho coach Mark Sowa said this senior class is probably the best in school history.
“I think our program is radically better because of those seven athletes,” Sowa said of the seniors. “So yeah, I think you can easily say top to bottom this is the best class this school’s ever had.”
Idaho took sixth out of the eight teams at the WAC Championships at the end of February in San Antonio.
At the meet, the Vandals took second in the 400-yard freestyle relay with a team of junior Jamie Sterbis, Anderson, junior Sami Hendricks and Millet. The Vandals also took third in the 200 freestyle relay with the same four-person team.
Anderson placed second in the 50 freestyle and Millet took third in the 200 individual medley and the 200 freestyle.
“The place where we saw a heck of a lot of improvement was with our distance program,” Sowa said. “Christine Renzini had a very good year setting a school record in both the 1,000 and 1,650 freestyle.”
Sowa said freshmen Faith Barr and Delaney Boulo and sophomore Mia Goodwin also contributed well in the distance department.
Even though some of the upperclassmen contributed greatly, 10 out of the 28 swimmers and divers on Idaho’s roster were freshmen. In fact, junior Delaney Peugh was the only non-freshman diver who received significant time on the boards.
Sowa said he has already seen improvement in spring practices from the freshmen, who will be sophomores in the fall.
“We sat down at the beginning of the spring and we said our goal is not to get in shape, our goal is to get better this spring and they’ve been great about it,” Sowa said. “That’s not easy to do when you don’t have competitions. You can tell that they’ve taken the reigns already and want to get better, and same thing with the diving program.”
During the regular season, Idaho went 5-6 overall, but 5-1 in WAC duals. Its only conference loss was to the eventual WAC champion Northern Arizona.
After opening up the season with a loss to Boise State in Moscow, the Vandals followed it up with a win against Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colorado. The momentum didn’t last long though as Idaho lost its next three meets to San Diego State, Colorado State and Northern Arizona.
Fatigue could have factored into the losses though. After beating Northern Colorado on Halloween, the Vandals had to make a short drive to Fort Collins, Colorado, to compete against San Diego State and Colorado State Nov. 1. Idaho then had to make the trip back to Moscow to take on Northern Arizona Nov. 7.
Fatigue didn’t seem to be a factor the next day though (Nov. 8) as the Vandals beat WAC rivals Cal State-Bakersfield and Seattle in Moscow.
Idaho started the second semester with two more home WAC wins against New Mexico State Jan. 14 and Grand Canyon Jan. 24. The Vandals ended the regular season with two losses to Pac-12 teams — Oregon State and Utah — before heading to the WAC Championships.
“Ultimately we talked about never judging a season based on one performance, so I think if you look at the totality of the season, you feel pretty great about where this program is and where we’re headed,” Sowa said.
Garrett Cabezacan be reached at[email protected]