Dec. 1, 2001
Results
AUSTIN, Texas - Building off its record-setting night Friday, Arizona State's women's swimming and diving team saw two more Sun Devil records fall at the Texas Invitational as the second day of competition wrapped at the Lee and Joe Jamail Texas Swimming Center in Austin, Texas, Saturday.
In the first event final of the evening, ASU's 200-yard medley relay team of sophomore Miranda Shald, freshman ?gnes Kov?cs, sophomore Florence Mauro and junior Claire Hedenskog placed third with a time of 1:40.87. Just missing the NCAA automatic qualifying standard of 1:40.31, the Sun Devil foursome established a school record by more than a second, besting the previous standard of 1:42.16, set at the end of last season by a respective team of Shald, Riley Mants, Sarah Baham and Hedenskog.
The Sun Devils' other school record to be broken Saturday was in the 400y individual medley. Placing third in an NCAA automatic qualifying time of 4:11.68, Kov?cs convincingly eclipsed Carolyn Adel's school record mark of 4:13.05, set at the end of the 1999-2000 season.
Also recording outstanding swims - and NCAA consideration times -- in the 400y IM, were Baham and freshman Kari Wilcox. Moving back into ASU's all-time top-10 list (ninth), Baham placed 10th in 4:19.26, while Wilcox took 12th in 4:20.71.
But the night clearly belonged to Kov?cs, who in the 100y breaststroke added another third-place finish for the Sun Devils. Although still shy of Beata Kaszuba's school record of 59.71 (set in 1995), Kov?cs inched ever closer to becoming the second ASU woman to swim sub-1:00 with her collegiate best performance of 1:00.68.
Mants, who was second all-time at ASU in both breaststroke events before the arrival of Kovacs, won the 'B' final of the 100y breast in an NCAA consideration time of 1:03.74, bringing home ninth-place points. Senior Jennifer Lowe (1:04.64) and junior Josie Jedick (1:05.47) placed 12th and 13th, respectively.
Other individual event finals included the 200y freestyle, in which freshman Florencia Szigeti lowered her collegiate best with a 1:48.47 performance to place sixth overall, and the 100y backstroke where Shald placed sixth in 55.39.
The Sun Devils' highest finish of the evening came via the 800y free relay. Earning NCAA consideration and the second-fastest time in school history, an ASU team of Szigeti, sophomore Brooke Townsend, Wilcox and Hedenskog placed second in 7:18.95.
With one day of competition remaining, ASU is in fourth-place among the 13-team field with 333 points. The Texas Invitational concludes tomorrow with prelims and finals of the 1650 freestyle, 200 backstroke, 100 freestyle, 200 breaststroke, 200 butterfly and 400 freestyle relay.
Day Two -- Team Scores
1. Texas 506, 2. Stanford 437, 3. Arizona 363, 4. Arizona State 333, 5. California 287, 6. USC 276, 7. Auburn 246, 8. Wisconsin 237, 9. TCU 39, 10. UCLA 29, 11. Rice 16, 12. Nebraska 10, 13. Hawaii 3.