(Photo: Blake Benard/WCSN)
Arizona State’s women’s swim team traveled to Texas to compete in the annual Art Adamson Invitational at Texas A&M. This meet marked the halfway point in the 2015-2016 season. After weeks of preparation, Swimming Coach Bob Bowman wanted to give his team some rest hoping they would swim fast.
Big swim meets can bring a lot of emotion to a team. However, all the excitement can go away with one race ending badly. For ASU, several races had a misfortunate ending. The 200-yard medley relay and the 800-yard freestyle relay ended in disqualification, which is difficult considering how fast the team could have gone.
With a disqualification, no time is recorded and no place is awarded. It is like the race never happened. “DQs” happen when a swimmer commits a false start, swims an improper stroke or doesn’t touch the wall. Instead of seeing a time and place next to a swimmers name in a result sheet, all they see is “DQ” in big bold letters.
“I definitely think we can get a lot better,” Junior Alysha Bush said. “A lot of us have come up with game plans for the future based on our performance this weekend.”
Bush was guilty of a false start in the 200-yard medley. A relay disqualification is hard on a swimmer, because they not only let themselves down, but also their teammates- especially when a teammate achieves a best time.
“In terms of the finisher and the starter, the timing was a little off,” Bush said. “The butterflier was coming in and she took another half stroke, I had already wound up and left as she was going to glide in.”
Despite the numerous disqualifications, the Sun Devils still had some strong swims. Junior Kat Simonovic had a great meet. In the 200-yard freestyle, Simonovic was out touched by .07 for second place, but she settled for third with a time of 1:45.91. Later in the meet, Simonovic took 8th place in the 100 yard freestyle. Her time of 50.10 was .01 faster than teammate Alysha Bush.
“Last year at this time, during the same meet, I was about two seconds slower,” Simonovic said. “It was a really good gauge for me to see where I am at right now.”
The disqualifications were hard for the team to handle. Luckily the Sun Devils won’t have a meet for a long time. Therefore, they can spend some time in practice working to correct their mistakes.
