SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Arizona men's and women's swimming and diving defeated Utah on Saturday in Salt Lake City. The women won decisively (171-119), exhibitioning in the last four events. The men's victory was decided in the last event of the day, the 200 free relay. The Cats won the relay and the meet, 156-142. The women are now 3-0 on the season (1-0, Pac-12) while the men are 2-0 (1-0, Pac-12).
For the women, freshman
Hannah Cox continued her momentum from the season opener, winning each of her three events. Cox again outswam the competition to finish first in the 200 free (1:50.55) and 500 free (4:56.15). The freshman also won the 200 IM with a time of 2:06.02.
Sophomore
Annie Ochitwa remains a key contributor for the women. Ochitwa took first in the 100 fly for the second time this season, winning by more than two and a half seconds (54.36). She also finished first in the 100 back with a time of 54.23, beating teammate
Taylor Garcia by four-tenths of a second.
Ochitwa was a member of both winning relay teams. The swimmer helped open up the meet with a victory in the 200 medley relay with
Kennedy Lohman, Garcia and
Katrina Konopka (1:42.37). The team of
Ashley Sutherland, Ochitwa, Garcia and
Sarah Shimomura later out-touched the competition to win the 200 free relay with 1:33.08, edging out Arizona's second relay team by five-hundredths of a second.
Senior diver
Karolyn Loftus had strong performances in both the 1-meter and 3-meter to take second with scores of 250.50 and 246.45, respectively.
Other victors in the meet include freshman Lohman (100 breast – 1:04.55), sophomore Konopka (100 free - 51.37), junior
Tjasa Oder (1,000 free - 10:09.73), sophomore
Mik Ranslem (200 fly – 2:03.98) and junior
Cameron McHugh (200 back – 1:59.72).
On the men's side, a plethora of Cats contributed points to the victory. Senior
Tyler Fowler gave the men a win in the first individual event of the day (1,000 free), touching in 9:33.59, six seconds ahead of Utah's runner-up. Fowler later took third in the 500 free with a time of 4:39.45.
Sophomore
Chatham Dobbs earned a first-place finish in the 100 fly (49.73) and took second in the 100 back (49.93). Dobbs also swam for the winning 200 free relay team that gave the Cats a meet victory. Utah needed to finish 1-2 or 1-3 in the event to win the meet. However, Arizona's
J.P. Beach,
Renny Richmond,
Chad Idensohn and Dobbs hit the wall first with a time of 1:22.92.
Additional individual winners include sophomore
Parks Jones (200 free – 1:41.51), freshman
Brendan Meyer (200 fly – 1:50.34) and freshman
Thomas Anderson (200 back – 1:51.01).
Arizona swept the podium in six events for women (200 free, 100 back, 50 fee, 200 back, 500 free and 200 IM). In both the 100 back and 500 free, the Cats went 1-2-3-4. The women also had at least two swimmers in the top three in 11 individual events in addition to the two relays.
The men commanded the 50 free, going 1-2-3, and had multiple swimmers in the top three in eight individual events. They also went 1-2 and 1-3 in the relays.
Up Next: The Cats travel to Los Angeles to face UCLA and USC. The women look for their fourth-consecutive win of the season against the Bruins on Fri. Nov. 4 at 1:30 p.m. MST. Both the men and women will then compete against USC on Sat. Nov. 5 at 12 p.m. MST.
Follow Arizona Swimming and Diving: For further coverage of Arizona swimming and diving, visit ArizonaWildcats.com and follow the team's Twitter (@ArizonaSwimming) and Instagram (@ArizonaSwimDive) accounts.
