Sophomore Miriam Crispo flips her wrist around to reach for a good pull during a backstroke heat against NAU on Feb. 2. The women’s team finished No. 23 at the NCAA championships. (Photo by Molly J. Smith)The ASU women’s swim and dive team finished up its season after competing in the NCAA championships over the weekend.
The No. 25 Sun Devils sent 11 athletes (nine swimmers, two divers) to Indianapolis, Ind., where the competition was held.
Rounding out the weekend in 23rd place, ASU didn’t exactly have the finish it wanted, but a couple of swimmers and divers finished off their 2012-13 campaigns with solid times and scores.
Bringing home the only medal of the weekend, junior Hailey Casper finished second in the three-meter dive on Friday, good for the silver medal.
Casper finished nine points behind Purdue’s Casey Matthews with a score of 377.70. That score was enough to edge out the school record set in 2011 by Elina Eggers for a 3-meter dive in a championship setting.
Both Casper and freshman Morgan Weller competed the previous day on the one-meter dive. Weller, riding the momentum of her gold medal performance in the one-meter dive at the Pac-12 championship, was only able to muster a 14th place finish at the NCAA preliminary round. Casper came in 21st.
On the first day of competition, senior Shannon Landgrebe finished 28th in the 50-yard freestyle but swam a 22.54, topping her previous best in that race by .03 seconds.
Senior Cassie Morrice and junior Tristin Baxter both competed in the 500 free and finished within .02 seconds of another, with times of 4:43.57 and 4:43.59. They placed 25th and 26th, respectively.
The relay team of Landgrebe, Morrice, Baxter and senior Lizzy Luttrell placed 15th in the 800-yard freestyle Friday, scoring four points for the Sun Devils.
Among others, senior Caroline Kuczynski had her second-best time of the season in the 100-yard butterfly with 53.01, touching in at 22nd.
In the final day of competition, Kuczynski swam in the 20-yard butterfly finals and came in 15th place with a time of 1:57.71.
Finishing her junior campaign on a high note, Baxter placed 12th in 1650-yard free, swimming just seconds off her school record pace.
Although the women are done for the year, the ASU men will travel to Indianapolis, Ind., this week and begin competing on Thursday.
Reach the reporter at ross.dunham@asu.edu
