The Brigham Young Cougars showed very few signs of a month long lay-off on Thursday as both the men and women’s swim and dive teams came out on top of the visiting Horned Frogs. The BYU men won 140-95 and the women finished above TCU 126-100.

 

“We swam better than I thought we would today since we have not raced in so long,” BYU women’s coach Stan Crump said. “Most of our girls were within a tenth of a second of their previous season-best time which is great. I would attribute that to our tough training over the Christmas break.”

 

The Cougar women had a complete sweep by winning every race against the Horned Frogs. A trio of swimmers, who each won two events – Natasha Menezes, Aleesha Miller and Sara Jayne Christiansen, highlighted this impressive performance by the BYU women.

 

Menezes touched the wall first in the 200 and 500 freestyle events with times of 1:52.79 and 5:03.18, respectively. Miller dominated the freestyle sprint distances as she finished with a time of 23.52 in the 50 free and a time of 51.45 in the 100 free, while Christiansen finished first in the 200 IM (2:06.87) and in the 100 backstroke (58.61).

 

The BYU men were able to mirror the women’s performance as they finished 45 points ahead of the visiting TCU. The Cougar men swept the two relays on the day. In the 200 medley, BYU finished in a time of 1:31.40 which is two second faster than the second-place team, while in the 200 free the top Cougar team won with a time of 1:23.90.

 

“Our competitive attitude was positive today which I am very pleased with,” BYU men’s coach Tim Powers said. “Since we are just coming off of a long lay over, you could tell that there were some places where we’re a bit rusty but overall it was a good meet.”

 

Individually, the BYU men saw freshman Vytenis Slenys of Lithuania win the 100 breaststroke as well as the 200 IM. Slenys recorded a time of 57.38 in the 100 breast and finished with a time of 1:54.43 in the 200 IM.

 

After such an impressive performance on Thursday, the men’s swim team does not have any time to waste in getting to their next meet tomorrow at 12 p.m. in Federal Way, Wash. The team boarded a bus less than an hour after the end of the TCU meet to arrive in Washington at 11 p.m. and to face-off with the University of Washington Huskies less than 12 hours later.

 

The Cougar women will be back in action on Saturday at 1 p.m. as San Diego State comes to Provo. This will be held in the Richards Building Pool and is free to the public.