Oct. 20, 2001
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Arizona State's women's swimming and diving team opened the 2001-02 season taking first-place points in all 16 events to dominate the University of Hawaii 230-70, in Honolulu, Friday night.
Leading the way for the Sun Devils was the reigning Olympic and World 200-meter breaststroke champion, ?gnes Kov?cs, who swam her way on to three ASU all-time top-10 lists in her collegiate debut.
Kov?cs, from Budapest, Hungary, earned her first win in the 100-yard breast, touching the wall in 1:02.14, ahead of Hawaii's Morgan Hoesterey, who finished in 1:03.20. Kov?cs then finished one-two in the 200y breast with senior teammate Riley Mants, the Sun Devils clocking in at 2:11.27 and 2:18.98, respectively. Finally, Kov?cs completed her hat trick in the 200y individual medley, winning easily in 2:02.96, ahead of Hoesterey at 2:08.50.
Registering her first official collegiate times, Kov?cs now ranks second all-time at ASU in the 100y and 200y breast and is sixth all-time in the 200y IM. In both breast events, Kov?cs trails only Beata Kaszuba, who in 1995 set ASU records of 59.71 for the 100y and 2:09.71 for the 200y. Mants now drops to third on both lists at 1:02.44 and 2:12.47, respectively.
However, in the 200y IM, Mants is one-place atop Kov?cs with her 2001 best of 2:02.95 (established at last season's Pac-10 Championships), which is just one-hundredth of a second faster than Kov?cs' performance Friday. Carolyn Adel holds the school record in the 200y IM at 2:00.29.
Kov?cs' 200y breast effort is an NCAA 'A' qualifying time, while her 100y breast and 200y IM are 'B' standards.
Another established international swimmer making her collegiate debut for ASU was fellow freshman Florencia Szigeti of Mendoza, Argentina, who won both the 100y and 200y freestyle. In the 100y free, Szigeti touched the wall in an NCAA 'B' time of 51.11, ahead of junior teammate Claire Hedenskog at 52.27. In the 200y free, it was ASU sophomore Brooke Townsend (1:54.55) finishing second to Szigeti's victorious 1:52.84.
Senior Sarah Baham, demonstrated the dominance that made her ASU's school record-holder in the butterfly events, winning the 100y fly in 56.95 and the 200y fly in 2:03.67.
In the diving events, senior Natalie Burgess was the double-winner, tallying 259.l8 points in the 1-meter springboard and 269.18 points in the 3-meter.
In addition to taking the 200y medley relay (1:44.92) and 200y free relay (1:36.44), other first-place finishers for ASU were Hedenskog (50y free, 24.00), Townsend (500y free, 4:58.42), senior Amanda Stanford (1000y free, 10:08.74), sophomore Miranda Shald (100y backstroke, 59.24) and freshman Kari Wilcox (200y back, 2:06.99).
Sun Devil swimmers will be in action at Mona Plummer Aquatic Center in Tempe, Ariz., Friday, October 26, for the intrasquad ASU Pentathlon at 3:00 p.m.
Complete results available in PDF format.
