STANFORD, Calif. – The Stanford women’s swimming and diving team won its second home meet of the weekend by taking down Arizona State, 148-68, Saturday afternoon. The Cardinal jumped to a big lead with varied lineups compared to yesterday to continue its unblemished mark in dual meets.
“Arizona State is a good squad so we had to choose our events carefully, but it was really great to see some of our freshmen in a role where they could lead more from a performance perspective,” said head coach Greg Meehan. “All-in-all, we can look back at the weekend and feel good about our performances.”
Grace Carlson and Tara Halsted were particularly impressive out of the freshmen class. Carlson won the 200 back (1:59.32) and contributed to a pair of relay wins and Halsted captured the 200 fly (2:00.89).
“Grace Carlson won the 200 backstroke swimming it very differently than how she swam it yesterday,
noted Meehan. “She made some mistakes yesterday and we talked about that. That’s why she swam it again today and I thought she was great.”
Meehan continued, “And even though she got second, I thought Tara Halsted did great in the 1,000 free. She swam a beautiful race, then came back later and won the 200 fly.”
Halsted was edged in the 1,000 by Arizona State’s Tristin Baxter, who was a bright spot for the Sun Devils as she won both distance swims.
Felicia Lee was the lone other double-winner in individual swimming events during the meet. The senior’s 2:01.11 in the 200 IM had her more than three seconds ahead of the field and she later won the 100 free in 50.02.
Maddy Schaefer (200 free, 1:48.95) and Katie Olsen (50 free, 23.51) also won and Maya DiRado was the quickest in the 200 breaststroke (2:18.29), although she used the event as an exhibition.
Stephanie Phipps won both diving events to make it three for four on the weekend after finishing first in the three-meter yesterday. Today, she scored 307.28 off of the one-meter and 349.80 off of the three-meter.
Stanford can now turn its attention to a week of preparation before its trip to Los Angeles next weekend. “We need to frontload our work in the beginning part of the week,” said Meehan. “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we’re going to have to do some good work. As we get to UCLA on Friday, they have a good squad and some good individual swimmers. Certainly USC is a very strong program and present some challenges with their lineup as well.”
Friday’s meet at UCLA will be televised on the Pac-12 Networks. Meehan praised the opportunity saying, “We’re absolutely excited to be on the Pac-12 Networks. Any national or regional exposure we get is wonderful. We’re very appreciative.”