S&D Drops Heartbreaker on Senior Day
CORAL GABLES, Fla. – The University of Miami swimming & diving team dropped its Senior Day home meet with FIU Saturday, falling by the slimmest of margins to its crosstown foe at the Whitten University Center Pool.
Needing the top two finishes in the day’s final event, the 400 freestyle relay, Miami took first but was narrowly edged out for second by the Golden Panthers’ “A” relay team. Miami’s “A” relay, comprised of My Fridell, Amy Wiley, Ksenia Yuskova and Rebeka Repman, took first in a time of 3:26.66, but its “B” entry (Alejandra Gonzalez, Angela Algee, Meghan Murphy and Heather Arseth) finished .09 seconds (3:28.70) behind FIU (3:28.61) for third.
“Score-wise, it’s disappointing. For the second week in a row, we had to get first and second in the 400 free relay to win a meet, and for the second meet in a row, we almost did it,” head coach Andy Kershaw said. “That doesn’t happen often.”
The close finish was more impressive given Kershaw’s decision to split up the relay teams to better increase the team’s chances of capturing the top two spots.
“When you look at the times from those relays, to think we split them up and we still went those times is pretty awesome,” Kershaw said.
Miami honored six seniors – Arseth, Wiley, Murphy as well as divers Cheyenne Cousineau, Thea Vock and Sam Dorman – in pre-meet festivities. The veteran group set the tone for the day, delivering a number of marquee performances.
“I put it on our seniors to lead us, and I think it was obvious that they showed us what they’re made of,” Kershaw said.
Yuskova earned the first win of her college career a time of 1:49.33 in the 200 freestyle. Her performance followed up a second-place showing from sophomore Cameron Davis in the 1000 freestyle (10:10.61).
“It was great to see Ksenia come away with a win – there’s a learning curve. This is only her third college meet. I’d say she’s moving through the learning curve quickly,” Kershaw said. “Cam was right there, and one of the really important things if you look across the board, is that they had a race plan today and they executed that plan. That’s what should happen at the end of January when you’re heading into the championships.”
Wiley took top honors in the 100 breaststroke (1:05.13) while sophomore Julia Schippert took third (1:05.99). Algee continued to build momentum with a top finish in the 200 fly (2:02.96), while Arseth (24.28) and Repman (24.32) placed in the top three of the 50 freestyle.
Vock and Cousineau traded top-two finishes in the diving events. Vock took first in the 1-meter (340.35) and second in the 3-meter (369.15), while Cousineau flip-flopped with Vock in both 1-meter (326.48) and 3-meter (383.33).
Top finishes by Fridell (54.81) and Algee (56.89) in the 100 fly set Miami up for a dramatic finish, where the Hurricanes fell just short.
“This is going to hurt for a while, but ultimately the improvement that we’ve made will be what stands out the most,” Kershaw said.
