ASU Swimming: Women’s relay teams suffered numerous disqualifications

(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 8^th 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.

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