Oregon State
California
Oregon State Falls to California in Season Opener
October 07, 2011 | Women's Swimming
Oct. 7, 2011
CORVALLIS, Ore. – The Oregon State swim team opened up the season in a dual meet against defending NCAA Champions California in a Pac-12 Conference meet on Friday. The Beavers fell to the Golden Bears 168 to 85.
“I think this meet helped establish our team as being a strong competitor in the Pac-12,” head coach Larry Liebowitz said. “Our goal was to race those guys straight up and I think we are making progress.”
The first event of the season and of the meet saw Jenni Dole, Rachel O'Brien, Ocean Trail and Crystal Kibby race for second place in the 200-yard medley relay with a time of 1:46.71.
Dole placed in the top three in both the 100-yard backstroke and the 200-yard backstroke. In the 100-yard backstroke she came away with a time of 57.12 and finished in third and in the 200-yard backstroke she finished second with a time of 2:04.10.
“I wasn't too happy with my 100-yard backstroke because I had a faster time last year at Orange and Black,” Dole said. “But in the 200-yard I have been working on coming out a little more relaxed and coming back stronger and I went about five seconds faster, so I was pretty happy with that.”
O'Brien and Kibby both placed in the top-three in their respective races with Kibby finishing third in the 100-yard breaststroke with a time of 1:06.65 and second in the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:21.76. O'Brien finished third in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 2:03.07 and finished second in the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 57.04.
Freshmen Shelby Webber, Delise Batiza and Dakota Bloch also all placed in the top-three in their respective events during the dual meet today.
Batiza finished in third place in the 500-yard freestyle finishing with a time of 5:09.02. Bloch finished in second place in the 500-yard freestyle with a time of 5:07.35 and finished in third in the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:22.23.
“The freshmen in the 1,000-yard both had very nice swims,” Liebowitz said. “The way they swim their races is called negative swimming which means going faster in the second half of the race. They are both really good at it.”
Webber highlighted the freshmen class with her performance against California. She placed third in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 1:52.27 and placed third in the 50-yard freestyle finishing with a time of 24.39. She also placed second in the 100-yard freestyle with a time of 51.75.
“Shelby is really an impressive swimmer and I think that she is going to really help us a lot this year,” Liebowitz said.
The Beavers return to aciton tomorrow Oct. 8 in Beaverton, Ore. when they visit the Nike Campus to take on California again at 12:00 p.m.
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