White Takes 1,650 Free Title As Hansel Invite Closes

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Oct 3

5:00 PM

Women's Swimming & Diving

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11:00 AM

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2:00 PM

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vs Colorado Mesa

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at Wyoming

HOUSTON, Texas – Keeping the energy up the third day of an invitational is a challenge, especially midway through the season. Blowing away the competition didn't prove to be an issue for freshman Maya White.

Swimming in her home state, she posted the second event win for Colorado State's women's swimming and diving at the Phill Hansel Invitational at the University of Houston Natatorium and it wasn't close. The Rockwall, Texas product covered the 1,650-yard freestyle in 16:28.50 – the second-best time in program history – 11.4 seconds in front the runner up. Classmate Emily Chorpening placed sixth, with seniors Abbey Owenby ninth and Madison Hunter 13^th.

The first day of the meet, White placed sixth in the 500 free, also with the second-best time in program history, as she continues to impress in her debut campaign.

"She led wire to wire. There wasn't much strategy except to hold pace, and she held a really quick pace," CSU head coach Christopher Woodard said. "She controlled it right from the beginning. I'm not amazed at her physical capabilities, I'm just more impressed with her attitude. She just seems to go for it. She doesn't hold back."

At the final tally, the Rams finished fifth in the team standings with 866 points, the best finish at the meet for the squad since taking fourth the 2016-17 season. The total was capped with the 400 free relay team of Kristina Friedrichs, Sarah Mundy, Megan Hager and Anika Johnson placed fifth in 3:23.08, the fifth-best time in the event ever for the Rams.

Coupled with a 13-0 start to the dual season, which establishes a program record for most dual wins in a season with the winning streak tied for the third best, Woodard has no real complaints about the first half of the schedule. The team has spent the past month training in a 30-meter facility at the Morris Fieldhouse, one which has no starting blocks, due to a broken pump which led to the temperature of the water sinking to unusable levels. The divers have had their board training cut back, too, and have had to resort to using off-campus facilities to train.

Even still, the team posted two event victories and had seven swims crack the top five over the past three days to go with a bevy of personal-best times for others.

"I think even more impressive than the record or the points or places is I'm seeing a shift in attitude and culture," Woodard said. "That's what's more impressive, and that's probably what's led to the wins. There's a higher expectation at practice, there's a higher expectation in competitions."

"We've had a really good first half. Now we have to have a great second half."

Senior Kristina Friedrichs was the only Ram to have all four of her individual finals swims take place in the championship finals when she placed sixth in the 100 freestyle in a time of 50.27, just a shade slower than her prelims time of 49.85, making her the fourth Ram to ever break 50.00 in the event, bumping her from fourth-best all-time to third. Two other Rams placed in the race, with Sarah Mundy 11^th, Anika Johnson 21^st.

A trio of Rams placed in the 200 breaststroke, led by Emma Breslin's finish of 16^th in 2:20.14. Kate Meunier was 21^st, and White came back to placed 24^th, giving her more than 2,000 yards swam on the day.

Hunter covered the same distance herself, she placed 16^th in the 200 butterfly, with Hannah Sykes taking 11^th in the race. Lisa Lunina (16^th) and Elsa Litteken (23^rd) both placed in the 200 backstroke.

Colorado State divers competed on the platform for the first time this year, with Jessica Albanna finishing 20^th, Jozie Meitz 23^rd. Lindsay Gizzi skipped the competition, as she has no experience in it. Her teammates were going off muscle memory from last season, as the team has not had a platform practice session this season.

The Rams will now head home for the Thanksgiving break before returning to train, hopefully at Moby Pool. They will resume competition during winter break when they face Mountain West foes San Diego State and Fresno State in a double dual in San Diego on Jan. 7.

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