Feb. 27, 2003
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FEDERAL WAY, Wash. -- The No. 15 Arizona State Women's Swimming team sits in 5th place after the first day of competition at the Pac-10 Women's Swimming Championships at the King County Aquatic Center. Sophomore ?gnes Kov?cs led the way for the Sun Devils with a second place finish in the 200 IM, while senior Claire Hedenskog became the first woman in school history to swim under 23 seconds in the 50 freestyle.
Kov?cs' quick final round swim of 1:59.18 was almost two-and-a-half seconds faster than her preliminary time, yet Michala Kwasny of USC touched the wall in 1:58.67, shaving nearly four seconds off of her prelim time. Kov?cs is the only woman in ASU history to swim the 200 IM in under two minutes.
Claire Hedenskog got her afternoon off to a quick start in the 50 free by clocking a 22.97 in the preliminaries, a new ASU all-time best. That placed her fifth going into the finals, where she finished fifth with a 23.14. Natalie Coughlin of California won the event with a Pac-10 record time of 22.05, the lone Pac-10 record of the day.
In the 500 free, Petra Banovic recorded a 4:50.24 to finish seventh in the only other individual swimming event on the day. In the relay events, the 200 free relay of Florencia Szigeti, Laura Ullrich, Florence Mauro and Hedenskog clocked the third-best time in ASU history (1:33.03) to finish sixth. The final event of the day was the 400 medley relay, where the Sun Devils finished sixth with a 3:43.77.
Tomorrow's prelims begin at 1:00 p.m. and the finals begin at 6:00 p.m. The standings are as follows: UCLA 418.50 Stanford 409 USC 353 California 301 ASU 239 Arizona 217 Washington 144.5 OSU 139 WSU 95