Bringing down the rivals: Bronco swimmers defeat Vandals

Posted by Courtesy Sports Monday, January 25th, 2010

TAYLOR RUTLIDGE/THE ARBITER – A Broncos swimmer gets into ready position before the gun. The Broncos beat WAC rival University of Idaho 217-83.

A wide array of music blasted from the speakers as the swimmers ended their warm ups and began to wait for the meet to start. College rivals University of Idaho and Boise State (12-4, 6-1 Western Athletic Conference) went head to head on January 23. BSU beat the Vandals 217-83.

The atmosphere was full of tension and nerves could be seen on both teams’ swimmers. The crowd began to accumulate as a vast mass of orange and blue dominated the bleachers at the West YMCA. Down on the deck, swimmers in orange caps waited anxiously to begin, offset by the black and gold colors sitting to their right. After a long winter break the Broncos were back to face off against their Idaho rivals and despite the nerves they came prepared.

“Over the break we went to San Diego for eight days of double practices to train. It was the hardest training of the year,” sophomore Amber Boucher said.

While in San Diego the ladies competed against University of San Diego to win 235.5-134.5 points.

“Out trip to San Diego was excellent. It was our first time beating University of San Diego and we had some swimmers achieve lifetime bests that we weren’t anticipating,” head coach Kristin Hill said.

After such hard training the Broncos showed there strength against U of I.

The meet started with diving on the one meter springboard. Amidst the various flips, turns and splashes BSU’s junior Amanda Burnett shined, having one of her best diving performances of the season. Burnett took first place with a total score of 227.93 points.

“I didn’t have a very good week at practice, so the fact that I did so well is really good. I hope to repeat this for next week,” Burnett said.

Burnett just started diving this season after previously doing gymnastics for two years. The Vandals’ Marrow took second with 225.35 points and the Broncos’ Erin Lionberger took third with 211.58. For the three meter springboard, Idaho’s Amanda Morrow took first with 233.18 points, BSU’s Burnett too second with 223.58 and Lionberger third with 209.33.

Once the lanes were set back into place the Broncos took the rivalry to the water and proved their strength and endurance with their swimmers against the Vandals, taking first in every event. The tone was set with the first event, girls 200 medley relay, which had Boise’s A and B teams beat out Idaho’s A team, taking first and second respectively. After the first win, BSU girls kept on racking up the wins in the water and continued the pace with the second event, girls 1000 yd freestyle, by dominating the competition and taking first, second and third wins against the Vandals. Freshman Jennifer Cahill took first with a time of 10:27.39, junior Rachel Meisner took second with 10:29.22, and senior Katelyn Lofland taking third with a time of 10:37.95.

All of the Bronco swimmers showed great efforts and fast times against the Vandals.

“We were really tired after our trip to San Diego so to see us win every event against our rivals has raised our spirits. We can think ‘yes, I can keep going.’” Boucher said after the meet in response to the win against the Vandals.

Boucher herself took first in the 50 yard freestyle and 100 yard butterfly as well as competing for both A teams in the 200 medley relay and leading the 400 freestyle relay.

“We did very well. Our goal was to win every event and the team showed really good effort,” Hill said.

The next team to beat will be New Mexico State at the Annual Big Splash meet on January 30. “New Mexico is a strong team within the conference, I anticipate it to be harder to win the events,” Hill said. After such a good meet the Bronco girls have raised spirits in anticipation of the last meet of the season before the Western Athletic Conference Championships Feb. 24-27.

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Posted by Courtesy on Jan 25 2010. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.