Nov. 5, 2011
SAN DIEGO - The San Diego State swimming and diving team opened its 2011-12 home season by defeating Colorado State (181-114) and UC Davis (175-120) Saturday afternoon at the Aztec Aquaplex. With the wins, SDSU improves to 6-0 (2-0 Mountain West) on the year as it ran its consecutive dual meet win streak to 28 contests.
Aztecs swimmers captured eight of the 10 individual events as well as both relays during the double dual meet. In addition, senior diver Kristen Meier won both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving, setting a school record in the second event.
After the 200 medley relay squad of Chelsea Bailey, Mikaela Macklin, Loreen Whitfield and Stephanie Koch opened the meet with a first-place finish. Sophomore Kelly Marquenie took first in the 1000 freestyle with a time of 10:07.42. It was the first of two victories for Marquenie on the day as she would later win the 500 free in 4:58.56.
Also picking up a pair of individual win among the swimmers was Leona Jennings. The junior from Seattle finished first in both the 100 and back in times of 56.65 and 2:03.54 respectively.
Meier began her afternoon by finishing first among 14 divers in the 1-meter springboard with a score of 281.95. She then duplicated that placing in the 3-meter board with a score of 354.45. That point total broke the previous Aztec record, which she held, by 20 points.
First-year Aztecs Gemma Johnson and Taylor Lakey picked up the wins in the 100 and 200 butterfly. Johnson went 56.52 to take first in the 100 fly while Lakey's mark of 2:04.09 in the 200 fly goes into the Aztec record book as the fourth-best time in school history.
Stephanie Koch added a first-place in the 100 freestyle (51.71) while Jessica Crider won the 200 freestyle (1:51.60). Koch was also the runner-up in the 50 free by .09 second and was on both of the Aztecs winning relay teams.
San Diego State finished off the meet by turning in the top time (3:31.66) in the 400 free relay. That foursome consisted of Koch, Meghan Zimmer, Johnson and Bailey.
San Diego State will take the next two weeks to prepare for the annual Arena Invitational to be held in Long Beach, Calif., Nov. 17-19. That swimming event only meet, hosted by UC San Diego, features many of the top teams in the west including defending national champion California along with UCLA, Stanford and Arizona State.
That same weekend (Nov. 18-20), the SDSU divers will be in action at the Wildcat Diving Invitational hosted by the University of Arizona in Tucson.