Jan. 8, 2011
Contact: Dan Carr
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The Cleveland State women's swimming and diving team resumed its season with a training trip to Puerto Rico this week, culminating in second place finish vs. Connecticut in the San Juan Dual Relay Challenge on Saturday (Jan. 8).
The Vikings won the first of the day's three relays but managed just second place finishes in the other two to fall, 11-7, in the event.
"We had outstanding performances from everyone across the board," head coach Wally Morton said.
The team of Alice Sommerville, Gretchen Hestley, Alexandra Johansson and Christine Kopacko won the 200 freestyle relay and were the only squad to finish in the points in that event.
Johansson, Sommerville, Joanna Olsson and Carys Behn placed second in the 400 medley relay while the runner-up 800 free relay team consisted of Behn, Hestley, Olsson and Ashley Rossi.
Diving events were also held, but UConn did not participate. Kacey Cummings had the best scores in both the 1-meter and 3-meter events, scoring 257.5 points in the former and 271.4 in the latter.
While the exhibition event allowed the team to end the week with a live competition, the true emphasis of the trip was to train for the remaining meets on Cleveland State's schedule.
"This week went extremely well," Morton said. "We got some great training in and, most importantly, the team had a great experience here."
The Vikings' first meet of 2011 will come on Saturday (Jan. 15) with a home meet against Oakland and Xavier in a 1:00 p.m. meet that will also serve as the team's annual Alumni Day.
"We're going to come back and swim against some historically tough teams," Morton said. "Many of [those swimmers] were down here training at the same facility we were. We'll probably be a little tired when we come back, but, if those teams trained as hard as they should have, they will also be tired.
"We're going to focus on overcoming this obstacle and competing at the maximum permissible level. This will be a good test for the team and will really help prepare us for the conference championships."
