Jayhawks defeat Horned Frogs in dual meet, 188-110

FORT WORTH, Texas – In its first road test of the 2017-18 season, the Kansas swimming and diving team defeated the TCU Horned Frogs, 188-110, in a dual meet Saturday afternoon at the recreation center on the campus of TCU in Fort Worth, Texas.
 
Sixteen strong swimmers represented Kansas in the meet that challenged the toughness of head coach Clark Campbell’s squad.
 
“There was a lot of adrenaline and they were revved up,” Campbell said of his travel squad. “The first seven or eight events before break, we were doing awesome. That continued later in the meet, but you could tell we were getting tired there toward the end. Not bad for a 24-hour road trip.”
 
Fighting exhaustion with a day trip, the swimmers were able to pull out top times right from the start.
 
“We started the meet with the 200-yard medley relay,” Campbell continued. “All three of our relays did well, and our A relay posted its best time all season.”
 
After that strong relay performance that swam a time of 1:44.62, the Jayhawks were able to feed off of each conquest and focus on their main goals of the competition.
 
Sophomore Jenny Nusbaum, freshman Crissie Blomquist and senior Nika Fellow finished one-two-three in the 1,000-yard freestyle with times of 10:18.91, 10:19.81 and 10:39.13, respectively. Blomquist’s time was 14 seconds faster than she swam last weekend.
 
“Crissie swam like we knew she could today,” Campbell said. “We talked about strategy today of going out faster and she did it and executed it perfectly. I’m proud of her for making that change.”
 
Along with Blomquist making moves, freshman Lauryn Parrish (1:52.08) and senior Madison Straight (1:55.01) finished first and second in the 200-yard freestyle to keep the team’s energy rolling from there.
 
“I think that the combination of the medley relay and then Jenny pulling Crissie along and those top two spots in the 200 free really got us started off well,” Campbell said. “I told some of the team that this is the first meet we’ve done where we have done all events at one time, like a regular dual meet. The first two we split them up, added some relays and things like that, but this is the first time we did one honest to goodness one-day dual meet and we had to swim all of the events back-to back-to-back.”
 
Kansas added more victories to its plate with freshman Manon Manning winning the 100-yard backstroke (57.15), sophomore Haley Downey winning the 100-yard breaststroke (1:04.36), freshman Ellie Flanagan claiming the 200-yard butterfly crown (2:05.54) and junior Haley Bishop earning the top spot in the 50-yard freestyle (24.18).
 
Parrish, Downey, Nusbaum and Bishop closed with first-place finishes in the 200-yard backstroke, 200-yard breaststroke, 500-yard freestyle and 100-yard butterfly, respectively. Straight took the 200-yard individual medley crown and the 400-yard freestyle relay team (Nusbaum, junior Taylor Sieperda, Bishop and sophomore Carly Straight) earned the best finish with a time of 3:29.96.
 
“We’re going to head back home and have a plane full of a tired team, but mission accomplished,” Campbell said. “It was about proving how tough they are and doing something that we knew was going to be a challenging situation and they did marvelous.”
 
On the diving side, senior Nadia Khechfe finished second in the one-meter dive with a score of 241.42.
 
The Jayhawks are back in the pool Saturday, Nov. 4, as they host Nebraska for an 11 a.m., dual meet inside Robinson Natatorium.
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