The Aggies had several great swims throughout the night winning 11 of the 16 events. "I'm very pleased by the win today," says head coach Steve Bultman. "We had great racing by the girls and several really close races; races where you had to check the board to know who won. Thankfully we got our fingertips on the wall before they did."
One of these close swims came from freshman Lisa Bratton. Bratton took the 200 backstroke from the Longhorns with a 1:54.92 leaving a .05 margin between first and second. Another close race came from freshman Béryl Gastaldello who took first in the 100 butterfly with a 53.81 - .07 seconds ahead of the Longhorn runner-up. Gastaldello also took first in the 100 back going 54.18.
Other great performances came from senior Sarah Henry. Henry took first in both the 1,000 and 500 freestyle events with come-from-behind wins going 9:43.35 and 4:47.21. Senior Sammie Bosma also swam well. She started off the meet as the anchor for the winning 200 medley relay with a split of 22.20. Bosma also took first in both the 50 and 100 free with a 22.82 and 49.71. She finished off serving as the lead-off leg of the 400 free relay which put the nail in the coffin for the Longhorns. Bosma's 100-yard split was 50.08. Sophomore Sycerika McMahon had a great race in the 200 breaststroke taking first with a time of 2:12.25.
The divers also brought in some points from the boards. On the 1-meter springboards, sophomore Madison Hudkins took first against the Longhorn's two NCAA finalists with a score of 306.53 following an accident during warm-up. While practicing, Hudkins slipped on the board while in mid-air and ended up landing back-first on the board. "Madison is tough," said dive coach Jay Lerew, "she wasn't going to let that accident effect her. She got up and went back to the boards for the win." Hudkins took second in the 3-meter competition with a score of 322.13. Sophomore Destine'e O'Neal also had a great run tonight earning a NCAA zone qualifying score of 279.90 on the 1-meter.
"I am very happy with how our girls dove tonight," said Lerew. "We had some good competition - two NCAA finalists - and Madison took first against them on the 1-meter. We have some work to do on the 3-meter but we still did well. Now we need to get back to training because we have to take on five olympians at the Art Adamson Invitational in two weeks."
"All around, this was a great meet. We had a great team effort in the pool and on the boards," said Bultman.
The women will have short break before their next competition at the annual Art Adamson Invitational, hosted by Texas A&M, on November 20-22 at the Texas A&M Student Rec Center Natatorium.