No. 14 Kentucky Women Top No. 10 Louisville, 161-139
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – For the first time since 2009, the Kentucky women’s swimming and diving program downed Louisville, 161-139, on Saturday afternoon inside the Ralph Wright Natatorium. The victory marked Kentucky’s first top-10 dual win of the season.
“It was a great meet,” said head coach Lars Jorgensen. “Obviously really pleased with the women coming up with a victory. It’s been a long time since we’ve beaten a very good Louisville team, so they were awesome today. To me, it was a team effort. Asia Seidt was outstanding, winning some very close, big, important races for us, but it was our leadership and our captains that have done a great job all year.”
With just two events left in the meet, the Wildcat women led by a slim 134-130 margin. Sophomore Asia Seidt came up in a big way in the penultimate race, winning the 200 IM with a time of 1:58.36 to put Kentucky on top, 148-135.
In the final event, UK needed just a second-place finish in the 400 freestyle relay to secure the victory. The Wildcats delivered. Kentucky’s ‘A’ relay team of Geena Freriks, Bridgette Alexander, Haley McInerny and Madison Winstead touched second with a time of 3:22.60, but Louisville’s winning relay team was later disqualified due to an early takeoff and therefore gave UK the win.
Freriks picked up the first individual victory of the day, winning the 1,000-yard freestyle with a time of 9:52.05. She went on to win the 500 free in a tight race, touching the wall in 4:48.08.
In addition to the 200 IM win for Seidt, the Louisville native added wins in the 100 backstroke (53.62) and 100 butterfly (52.88). All three of her individual event victories were NCAA ‘B’ standard times.
Freshman Bailey Bonnett swept the breaststroke events, first winning the 100 breast in 1:02.09 before claiming the 200 breast title in 2:13.14. Both her victories were good for NCAA ‘B’ cuts.
Sophomore Emma Dellmore added an important victory for the Wildcats on the 3-meter springboard, posting a score of 330.23. Junior Courtney Clark also scored for UK in the event, placing third with a score of 293.48.
Despite some big event wins, the Wildcat men dropped a hard-fought 168.5-131.5 decision.
“I thought the guys fought really hard in the beginning,” said Jorgensen. “Isaac Jones was fantastic. Glen Brown’s 1:47 in the 200 IM – that’s about as good as you get in season. Kevin Frebel was really good on diving, too. We still have a couple holes on the men’s team, but really proud of them.”
Kevin Frebel provided a strong start for the men’s team, sweeping the springboard diving events in impressive fashion. He posted a 370.80 to win 1-meter diving, and had a score of 402.53 to win 3-meter.
Jones added victories in both the 1,000 and 500 freestyle races, winning both handily. His time of 9:05.29 to win the 1,000 was more than 10 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, and his 500 mark of 4:26.45 bested the runner-up by more than four seconds.
Sophomore Jason Head posted a big come-from-behind win in the men’s 200 free, just edging out the competition with a winning time of 1:38.26.
Brown recorded a win for the Wildcats in the 200 IM, touching the wall in with an NCAA ‘B’ cut time of 1:47.99. The sophomore also added a second-place finish in the 200 breast with a time of 2:01.06.
Kentucky will be back in action Friday for its regular season finale, hosting Cincinnati at 4 p.m. ET. The meet will serve as Senior Day for Kentucky’s eight seniors.
For the latest on the Kentucky swimming and diving program, follow @UKSwimDive on Twitter, on Facebook at Facebook.com/UKSwimDive, and on the web at UKathletics.com.
