The ASU swim and dive team outscored the Florida State Seminoles with a combined team score of 328.5-271.5 on Saturday. While the ASU men's swimmers won by 52 points, the matchup of the women's team came down to the wire with the Sun Devils coming out on top 152.5-147.5.
The Florida State's men’s team was ranked 21st in the NCAA according to the CSCAA Coaches poll.
“We still have a lot to improve on, but, in general, their effort was great over the two days,” head coach Bob Bowman said. “It’s a very tight turnaround, and I thought we raced really tough today, so I’m proud of them.”
Freshman Emma Nordin finished first in the women's 200 yard freestyle race when she swam a 1:51.12, finishing first by barely edging out Florida State junior Shelly Drozda. Nordin also finished first in the women’s 500 yard freestyle with a time of 4:56.28.
Sophomore Zachary Poti finished first in the men's 100 yard back with 48 flat and in the men's 200 yard back where he swam an impressive 1:45.56, five seconds before the second place swimmer finished the race. Poti also swam as a member of the mens 400 yard medley relay that finished first in the second event of the meet.
Sophomore Cameron Craig, senior Christian Lorenz and sophomore Silja Kansakoski all had an impressive day, individually finishing first in two events each.
Bowman and assistant coach Michael Joyce both discussed how some of the technical swim movements during races need improvement.
“We need to come back next week and show progress in the technical areas, the turns, the starts – we are kinda really rusty on those and showed particularly in those short relays,” Bowman said.
Florida State picked up points with first place finishes in three out of the four relays, including the last two events of the meet -- the men's and women’s 200 yard free relays.
“I think we really have to clean up our turns and our breakouts, and that will come as we kind of fine tune things, and that will come as we go into our anaerobic phase of our training,” Joyce said. “We are really good between the flags. Under the flags, we need some work.”
Despite the late relay success, the Seminoles could not muster up enough points to outscore the Sun Devils.
Recap: ASU defeats the Utah Utes with a combined score of 404.5-195.5
Both the ASU men's and women's swim and dive teams defeated the Utah Utes on Friday, Oct. 27 at the Mona Plummer Aquatic complex. The ASU men's team won 197-103, while the women's team outscored the Utes in dominant fashion 207.5-92.5.
Overall, it was a dominant performance from the Sun Devils, who finished first in 27 of 32 events.
The Sun Devils' next meet will be a conference matchup against the University of Southern California Trojans on Friday, Nov. 3 in Tempe.
Reach the reporter at nsheehy@asu.edu or follow @nsheehy_nick on Twitter.
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