January 27, 1999
Arizona State vs Northern Arizona
TEMPE, Ariz - The Arizona State men's and women's swimming and diving teams host their last home dual meet of the season this week when they face Northern Arizona on Sat., Jan. 30 at 11 a.m. at Mona Plummer Aquatic Center on the campus of Arizona State University. The men's team enters this week's action with a record of 3-4 after dropping a pair of meets to California and Stanford. The women also dropped both meets to the Golden Bears and Cardinal last week and enter this week's meet with a record of 5-4-1. This weekend's meet will be the final home meet for seven Sun Devil student-athletes.
LAST TIME OUT: The Arizona State men's and women's swimming and diving team, ranked No. 10 and No. 23, respectively, lost to the Stanford men and women, ranked No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, Jan. 23 at Mona Plummer Aquatic Center. The men lost by a count of 138.5-98.5, while the women lost 174-122.
"I think I saw some good racing today," said Michael Chasson, head coach of both the ASU men's and women's swimming squads. "We wanted to challenge Stanford and I think that we did a good job of that today."
ASU's men's team was led by senior all-America and co-captain Francisco Sanchez, who recorded a pair of victories in the 200 freestyle (1:39.10) and the 100 freestyle (44.67). Also taking top honors for the Devils was junior Pablo Abal, who finished first in the 50 freestyle with a time of 20.80. The Devils' bid at an upset over the top-ranked Cardinal was aided greatly by junior diver Allan Sonkin, who finished first in both the 1- and 3-meter diving events. However, every time the Sun Devils would mount a rally, the Cardinal men would always have an answer and then some. On the women's side, ASU's best individual performance of the day came from freshman Riley Mants, who finished in first place in both the 100 breaststroke (1:05.10) and the 200 breaststroke (2:21.70). Also finishing first for the Sun Devils were junior co-captain Casey Murphy (500 freestyle, 5:01.41) and junior all-America Carolyn Adel (400 individual medley, 4:22.73). In the diving competition, junior Mandy Contreras finished second in the 1-meter diving competition. Chasson said he was pleased with what he saw from the women's squad, particularly considering the fact that it has been under his tutelage for less than a month. "I think the women did a great job today, considering everything they have had to adapt to with a new coaching style and all," said Chasson.
ASU Head Coach Michael Chasson on this week's meet: "I think that the women did a really good job (last week). Certainly those teams (California and Stanford) are much stronger than us right now. I think that the women raced tough and gave their best effort. Overall I think that they did a really good job (because) they have had a transition to make with a new coach. On the men's side, I wasn't happy with the whole team effort against Cal. We should have been a lot stronger overall. There were some individuals who did very well. Against Stanford, we had a much better team performance. I was much happier with our swims against Stanford as a team than I was against Cal. Against Cal, we should have been in position to have given them a better meet. This is the first meet in which I have been really disappointed with the results. We needed to keep getting better and we didn't do that on Friday (against California).
"I was happy they (the men) rebounded on Saturday and did a better job, especially some individuals who swam very poorly on Friday and rebounded and did very well on Saturday. And so they refocused and they came back and they did a lot better job.
"This week we are trying to swim some events that are not our No. 1 or No. 2 events. We want to try and swim the Nos. 3, 4 and 5. We also want to give the seniors a chance to swim something that maybe they haven't swam before since it is their last home meet. It will give us a chance to see some people swim some other events that we haven't seen yet.
On how the transition has been for him now assuming the role of head coach of both the men's and women's teams: I think it has been fine. I haven't had any problem with it. It all comes back to them. If they were not receptive of new thins then it would be hard, but they have done a great job. Our goal for them is to get to know their swimming better in the next couple of weeks to help them better prepare for the conference meet.
SENIOR SALUTE: This week's meet against Northern Arizona marks the final home meet for the following Sun Devil swimmers: Scott Brown, Robert Delgado, Guillermo Diaz de Leon, Tiffany Houser, Camilla Johansson, Richard Morris, and Francisco Sanchez.