(Photo: Scotty Bara/WCSN)
In their first home meet of the season, The Arizona State men’s and women’s swim teams defeated Denver University Saturday afternoon with final scores of 196-99 and 152-135.
The crowd was roaring at the Mona Plummer Aquatic Center, as ASU displayed numerous top performances to improve to 3-0.
“I’m really proud of the team, I told them they need to showoff because they have been working hard,” Assistant Head Coach Ryan Mallan said. “They have been pushing themselves to the limit everyday, so I feel good for them and I’m excited for them.”
One the men’s side freshmen Cameron Craig had an exceptional afternoon, placing first in both of his events. Craig’s first victory came in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:39.61. His later victory was in the 100-yard freestyle as he touched the wall at 43.93. Later in the meet, the freshmen showed how special he could actually be. In the 200-yard freestyle relay, Craig was the anchor and brought home the victory with a 50-yard freestyle split time of 20.14.
Craig mentioned he was just focused on giving it everything he had to seal the deal and help his team win.
“I just wanted to go for it, I just wanted to hit the wall first,” Craig said. “That was the goal. I wanted to finish strong and I know everyone else wanted to finish strong, so I just went after it.”
Even though the freshmen swimmer preformed well, he believes there is still a lot of work to put in.
“I can improve off the wall, head positions and just the little things that can make me faster,” Craig said. “It’s just the start of a great career here at ASU.”
Denver couldn’t stand a change with ASU throughout the day. In the 100-yard butterfly, ASU took first, second and third place, making it a clean sweep in that event. Senior Andrew Porter touched the wall first with a time of 47.76. Then the junior Patrick Park and senior Tadas Duskinas followed with times of 47.78 and 48.15.
One the women’s side it was a grind it out victory, it came down to the 200-yard freestyle relay.
Like Craig, senior Alysha Bush was the anchor and brought it home for her team. The senior’s spectacular finish gave her team the much-needed four points to win the meet.
“It was exciting, it really forced us to dig deep and really get each other hyped up, Bush said. “ We had a little meeting before the relay because we realized we were only four points away. Its cool to be apart of, our team cultural is so different this year because we all have really great bonds and we want swim for each other.”
One of the lady’s best events of the afternoon was the 50-yard freestyle. ASU swept with Bush coming in first with a time of 22.77 and followed by Claire Fisch and Katherine Wagner with times of 22.88 and 23.26.
Bush also placed first in the 100-yard freestyle touching the wall with a time of 49.97.
Bush said a win like this gives them confidence-moving forward.
“It shows us that we have what it takes to be at a top level,” Bush said. “This is just the beginning with all these new freshman coming in and are making a huge impact. It shows us that we are going to be competitors at Pac-12.”
