Kansas sets two school records at day one of the Big 12 Championship
BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIP
Feb. 27-March 2
Austin, Texas
Jamail Texas Swimming Center
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AUSTIN, Texas – The Kansas swimming and diving team started the 2019 Big 12 Championship at the Jamail Swimming Center in Austin, Texas, Wednesday evening in a fast-pace manner as they ended the day with two school records broken.
The evening consisted of two relay events, the 200-yard medley and the 800-yard freestyle relay, where the Jayhawks set two Kansas school records and tallied a total of 66 points to set the Jayhawks in second place behind Texas (80).
After the third-place finish in the 200-yard medley relay, the Jayhawks came in hot in the 800-yard freestyle relay when they broke the school record (7:11.99 set in 2014) with a time of 7:10.74. Junior Jenny Nusbaum led the group of four in the second-place relay with a personal-best and school record time of 1:45.68.
The Jayhawks had an opportunity to swim in the pool earlier in the day Wednesday in a time trial session.
Five Jayhawks competing managed to put down four personal-best times to kick-off the competition in the pool.
Juniors Elizabeth Amato-Hanner and Katy Schlies swam times of 23.61 and 23.94, respectively, in the first event of the morning, the 50-yard freestyle time trial. Following in the 100-yard butterfly, senior Cassaundra Pino touched the wall at 56.55 for her first swim of the championship.
To round out the morning’s sessions, freshman Paige Riekhof and sophomore Ellie Flanagan swam in the 200-yard freestyle (1:50.02) and the 200-yard breaststroke (2:21.56), respectively.
The team is geared up and ready to take on day two of the 2019 Big 12 Championship meet Thursday, February 28. The sessions will begin back in the pool with prelims at 10 a.m. followed by finals at 6 p.m. Races on the second day of the championship include the 500-yard freestyle, 200-yard individual medley, 50-yard freestyle, the 400-yard medley relay and the women’s one-meter dive.
FloSwimming will continue to live stream all of the preliminary and final events on demand. Swimming and diving fans can also follow the results live through the Big 12 Swimming and Diving Championship Central website.
EVENTS
- Sophomore Manon Manning, freshman Kate Steward, Amato-Hanner and junior Carly Straight started the Jayhawks when they touched the wall with a season-best time of 1:40.05 in heat one of three in the 200-yard medley relay.
- Senior Taylor Sieperda, junior Haley Downey and freshmen Kaitlyn Witt and Franki Petrosino touched the wall in the ‘B’ 200-yard medley relay at 1:41.25
- Freshman Dewi Blose, Flanagan, freshman Greta Olsen and junior Katy Schlies swam a 1:44.74 in the ‘C’ 200-yard medley relay.
- Concluding the 200-yard medley relay events, the ‘C’ relay consisting of freshman Sydnie Horne, Pino, freshman Katie Callahan and sophomore Caroline Schultz finished with a time of 1:48.30.
- The 800-yard relay squad of freshman Claire Campbell, sophomore Lauren Parrish, Nusbaum and senior Haley Bishop ended Wednesday’s events with a new Kansas school record of 7:10.74 and a silver medal.
QUOTES
Head coach Clark Campbell
On both relays performances today:
“The 200 medley relay was a really good solid first swim because it was a season-best and better than we were last year. We had a lot of the same people on it last year as we did this year. And so it was a better start then we have had previously, so that got us some good momentum going. But the 800-yard freestyle relay with Jenny leading off, it just got everyone really excited and you could just see that energy carry through to the next three people in the relay and for us to have a school record and Jenny’s school record for her lead off is just a tremendous way to start.”
If he was anticipating the 800-yard medley school record break:
“Yeah, we have been training for this and we knew that relay record from before was really good with really talented athletes, but we knew that we had four that had been really working hard and all four of them have been putting in good work towards the 200-yard freestyle. So it was like, ‘alright we swim well and we are going to be in the ball park.’ And for us to be over a second faster and for Jenny to be almost a half of a second faster than the school record was great. You are really happy when athletes work so hard for something and then they realize it. And all four of them have worked really hard towards being better 200-yard freestylers which led to us having a record-setting 800-yard freestyle relay. You love when you see hard work paid off.”
Looking into tomorrow:
“Really getting off to the back of good morning sweet because these leads are won and lost in the preliminaries. In each session you build momentum and this was a really good momentum builder so we want to keep that going into the individual races tomorrow. And so what we have to do is really focus on recovery tonight and then get ourselves ready to perform at high-level once prelims start at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Because that is really where you make significant moves and the championship meet is how well you do in prelims. We need to use that momentum that we built tonight and keep that rolling into tomorrow.”
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