Kansas Comes Up Short Against TCU, 176-124
LAWRENCE, Kan. – Sophomore Bryce Hinde and freshman Yulduz “Yulya” Kuchkarova posted top performances Thursday evening in dual-meet action, as the Kansas swimming and diving team fell short at TCU, 176-124.
Hinde placed first in the 100-yard breaststroke (1:04.64) and helped Kansas bring home a win in the 200-yard medley relay (1:45.55) with her 29.19 split on the second leg. Kuchkarova swam the opening leg of the relay (26.82) and won the 200-yard backstroke event (2:03.93), before taking second in the 100-yard backstoke (57.22).
Senior captain Morgan Sharp also added to the KU efforts, as she took first and second in the 100- and 200-yard freestyle races with times of 52.50 and 1:52.74, respectively.
“A positive from today was that Morgan Sharp had a very good meet,” Kansas head coach Clark Campbell said. “She raced really tough and won the 100-yard freestyle. For her showing that kind of speed when we haven’t been doing that much speed work during practice was impressive.”
Sophomore Mikayla Winkler was the top finisher for TCU, with wins in the 200- (1:51.99) and 500-yard freestyle (4:59.79). TCU took home 11 event titles including first-place finishes in the 1000-yard freestyle by Sara Brzozowski (10:13.09), 200-yard butterfly by Catherine Rash (2:03.63) and in the 200-breaststroke with Gabi Korac swimming a time of 2:19.26.
“TCU was simply faster than us and they had a very good meet today,” Campbell said. “Last year about this time we swam against TCU and we were successful. This year things flipped. They had the type of meet we had against them last season.”
With this being the first conference meet of the season for Kansas, Campbell said it gave insight of what theBig 12 Championships will be like in late February.
“We are still a long ways away from the championships, but it was good to see what they were like,” Campbell said. “We were able to get a glimpse now of what they will be like in February even though we expect them to be better.”
With a little over two weeks before their next meet, the Jayhawks have time to prepare themselves by training more in the water and working on swim-specific training.
“For the first seven weeks, our training has been more on land with running and conditioning, which is important, but now our program starts to cut some of that out,” Campbell said. “Now our focus is to become better and faster swimmers and the only way to achieve that is by getting in the water and swimming. Usually we start off pretty slow in October, but by November we are sharper.”
The Jayhawks return to action in Robinson Natatorium on Nov. 2 at 1 p.m., when they host Nebraska-Omaha and North Dakota. The meet will serve as Senior Day for the Jayhawks, as well as breast cancer awareness day, where fans are encouraged to wear pink.
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