Contact: Jeff Sattora
CHICAGO-While the CSU women didn't bring home any wins on Wednesday, they had impressive balanced showings all evening long on day one of the 2013 Horizon League Championships at UIC.
Despite not winning one event, the women are in first place after the first finals session (nine points ahead of Green Bay) in the standings, and Head Coach Wally Morton was very pleased with how they performed.
"We're always happy to be in first place," said Morton after day one. "We're off to a solid start but we've got three more full days to go."
"We know we're just getting started and just have to take it session by session,' he added.
The 200 freestyle relay team of Alice Sommerville, Jamie Puls, Christine Kopacko, and Alex Johansson started the first finals session of the meet off with a second place finish in a time of 1:32.83, finishing just behind Milwaukee.
That relay was followed by a balanced 1,000 freestyle performance for the Vikings. Freshman Jodi Turk led the way with a fifth place finish at 10:21.90. Two CSU teammates followed her in sixth and seventh respectively in Nicole Kolis (10:26.45) and Bethany Robertson (10:27.93). The times for all three were their fastest of the year.
Following the 1,000 freestyle was the finals of the first diving event of the week, the women's 3-meter. Freshman Sammie Sposet finished seventh in that event for CSU, scoring 243.85, just above her previous season's best. Morton made sure to mention that for Sposet to place in the top eight as a freshman is an extremely impressive accomplishment in what is a deep field.
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The Vikings' 200 medley relay team of Alex Johansson, Alice Sommerville, Gretchen Hestley, and Jamie Puls concluded day one in the pool for the women with a third place finish in a time of 1:43.29.
On top of being impressed with Sposet on the diving side, Morton mentioned how well he thought the swimmers stepped up and performed. One in particular who really caught his eye was seniorJamie Puls.
"I thought Jamie Puls have a very nice split at the end of that medley relay," Morton said. "It was great to see Jamie in our relay. She's a senior and the first three years she wasn't able to be on the relays and now she's participating and really earned that right."
Puls and the Vikings will look to continue this strong start tomorrow when they are back in the pool for day to of the League Championships held at UIC in Chicago. The Championships in total run through Saturday evening.
