SAN DIEGO -- The BYU women’s team suffered their first loss of the season to San Diego State Thursday afternoon, but not without setting some pool records first.
“They just swam faster,” BYU head coach Tim Powers said. “There were so many races where SDSU just barely touched in before us. It made for some great competitive races, this meet was very educational for us.”
The first race of the night started out the close-call competition with SDSU winning the 200 medley at 1:43.28 and BYU’s team of Candice Smith, Sara Jayne Baldwin, Kim Welch and Aleesha Miller touching in at 1:44.97.
Rachel Grant recorded the first place time in the 200 free at 1:49.41, setting a new pool record for the Aztec Aquaplex. The Aquaplex has been in use since Feb. 2007.
In the 100 breaststroke, BYU had a 2-3-4 sweep with Baldwin in second with 1:04.79, barely behind first place taken by SDSU’s Katelyn Weddle at 1:03.34. Third and fourth place went to Londyn Clawson and Kassy Bispo with their times of 1:05.22 and 1:05.59, respectively.
In the 100 butterfly, BYU had a 1-2 sweep with Welch in first with 55.34 and Grant in second with 55.45. Welch placed first again for the Cougars in the 200 fly with her time of 2:02.35.
Both of Welch’s first place times in the 100 and 200 fly also set new pool records for the SDSU Aquaplex.
Miller swam an extremely close race in the 50 free, touching in at 23.83 while Kim Bierwith of SDSU placed first with 23.81.
In the 100 free, Baldwin placed second with her time of 52.04, just a second behind first.
Smith took second in the 100 and 200 backstroke with times of 56.68 and 2:01.50, respectively.
Grant and Baldwin took another 1, 2 sweep in the 200 IM with Grant in first at 2:02.21 and Baldwin in second with 2:04.37.
Once again, Grant set a pool record for the Aztecs with her first-place time in the 200 IM, totaling four new pool records for SDSU set by BYU swimmers.
The 400 free relay team of Taryn Toolson, Sam Crist, Welch and Miller placed second with a time of 3:29.45 to end the meet.
Dayna Christensen and Syrena Miskin each took second in the 3-meter and 1-meter diving competition.
“I think that we could have benefitted from a little more warm-up time on the boards,” Powers said. “We usually do better in our diving, but like I said, this meet was all-around educational for us.”
The final score of the meet was SDSU 173, BYU 127.
The BYU swim team will compete against UNLV Saturday at 2 p.m. in Las Vegas as the women’s second conference competition and the men’s first.