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No. 22 Sun Devils Open Season with Road Win at Washington State

by thesundevils.com
Oct 16, 2021

PULLMAN, Wash. -- The No. 22 Women's Swimming team hardly looked like a squad that hasn't competed since March 2020, opening the 2021-22 campaign with a resounding 157-105 win on the road at Washington State on Saturday.

With the win, the Sun Devils women's program is now a perfect 5-0 in season openers in the Bob Bowman era.

HOW IT HAPPENED

The Sun Devils never wavered after jumping out to comfortable leads. They won six consecutive races to begin the meet, with redshirt seniors Emma Nordin and Erica Laning adding wins in the 1000 yard and 200 yard freestyles, respectively.

Riley Lexvold and Iza Adame tallied their first collegiate victories, with the former winning the 100 backstroke with a score of 56:60.

The true freshman Adame posted a 1:04:68 in the 100 yard breaststroke to pace the group.
 

Jade Foelske added a pair of wins in both the 100 yard and 200 yard butterfly, with times of 55.15 and 2:00.38, respectively.

Charli Brown raced to a victory of her own in the 400 individual medley, thanks to a time of 4:24.38.

Lindsay Looney added two second-place finishes in the 100 and 200 yard butterfly, 

The four-person relay of Brown, Adame, Foelske and Natalia Fryckowska kicked things off in the first event of the meet with a victory in the 400 medley. It gave the Sun Devils an early 15-2 lead, and they never looked back from there.

Nordin and Foelske racked up a meet-best 18 points. Five of the meet's top six scorers were Sun Devils, with Laning, Brown and Lexvold, also earning double-digit points.

NEW FACES

All off-season long, the coaching staff had praised the deeply talented freshmen and redshirt freshmen classes. In the season opener, Elli Straume, Charli Brown, Riley Lexvold, Hana Edwards, Iza Adame and Emma Gehlert each earned top-three finishes in at least one of their respective races.

Thirteen of the 27 on women's roster had yet to compete at the collegiate level at the beginning of this season.

COACH'S WORDS (Associate Head Coach, Rachel Stratton-Mills)

On the team's first competition since March 2020:
"It was great to be back competing in a collegiate meet after such a long break. The team raced hard today and learned some valuable lessons on how to race in a dual-meet setting."

On the impact of redshirt seniors, Nordin, Laning and Nora Deleske:
"The redshirt seniors are valuable not only for their points scored today but their leadership throughout the meet. For so many of our athletes this was their first dual meet, and the redshirt seniors were able to lead the team in and out of the pool."

On the debuts of the freshmen and redshirt freshmen classes:
"I was very encouraged by our redshirt and true freshman today. Riley Lexvold, Iza Adame and Charli Brown all won events in their first meet as a Sun Devil, which shows great promise for the future of the team."

UP NEXT

The Sun Devils will turn their attention to their home opener, in which they'll host the UCLA Bruins on Friday, November 5.

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