Sophomore Kaylen Hewko’s outstanding 54-second anchor in the 400 freestyle relay, the meet’s final event, capped a 3:44.99 effort by the Cougar quartet, that also included Karla Hill, Stacy Wong and Parisa Dana, and lifted Azusa Pacific past NAIA rival Biola University by less than a second in the event which in turn vaulted the Cougars past Fresno Pacific University in the overall team standings. FPU finished tenth with 257 points. UC San Diego won the overall women’s team title with 1,403 points.
The effort completed a fine meet by Hewko in which she finished seventh in the 1650 free (school-best 17:48.66), tenth in the 200 fly (2:11.43), and 15th in the 100 fly (1:00.27).
“We needed a number of girls to meet certain times in their events for us to move up in the standings on Saturday,” said Azusa Pacific head coach Robert Fleming, “and one of those was Kaylen swimming a 2:11 in the 200 fly, and she did.”
The Cougars struggled from the outset of the meet, getting disqualified in the 200 medley relay, the meet’s opening event, after posting what would have been the second best time in the NAIA this year.
“We lost 46 points right there and seemed to have been chasing those points the rest of the meet,” said Fleming.
Complicating matters was the fact that several girls were battling colds.
The Cougars, however, rallied over the final 2 days with 64 points on Friday and 87 more on Saturday.
Parisa’s personal- bests of 1:01.69 in the 100 butterfly and 1:08.42 in the 100 breast garnered half of the Cougars’ Friday points.
In time trials immediately following the championship meet, junior Amy Syres and freshman Shawna Barnett punched their tickets for the NAIA Championship Meet. Syres clocked a 1:06.39 in the 100 backstroke, and Barnett recorded a 2:27.53 in the 200 butterfly.
Azusa Pacific now has 11 different athletes set to compete at the NAIAs the first weekend in March along with 5 different relays.
“For a first-year program, the girls have done a great job,” said Fleming. “We didn’t compete like a first-year program, finishing third out of the 7 NAIA teams in the meet. And considering our start to this meet, their results are really awesome.”
Azusa Pacific now takes a week off to prepare for the NAIA Championship Meet which will be held March 4-7 in St. Peters, Mo.
Click here to view the entire meet results.
