After a flat outing on the first day of the NCAA Women’s Division I Championship, the Lady Tigers find themselves in a huge hole.
The Lady Tigers began their meet with the 200-yard individual medley with freshman Kara Kopcso and sophomore Caley Oquist swimming in the preliminaries.
Kopcso and Oquist struggled against the competition, finishing in 43rd and 47th place respectively, with times a full five seconds slower than the first place finisher from Georgia, Melanie
Margalis.
The swim times from the two Lady Tigers were short of the needed times to qualify for the final heat of the event.
The trend continued throughout the day for LSU, as it missed the final cut for each of the next three events it competed in.
Junior Amber Carter swam in the preliminaries of the
50-yard freestyle and finished in 41st place with a time of 22.66. Carter’s time was more than a second off the winner of the preliminary and about a half a second out from qualifying.
The woes continued with the LSU relay team of Oquist,
Carter, sophomore Taryn MacKenzie and freshman Leah Troskot finishing last in the preliminary of the 400-yard medley relay. The relay team was blown out of the pool as their time of 3:38.30 was a little less than 10 seconds slower than the first place finishers from
Texas A&M.
LSU coach Dave Geyer isn’t ready to throw in the towel, as he expects to see much better results this weekend.
“The goal is to perform better than where we are seeded,” Geyer said in a news release. “I think with what we did see in our races today, there are much better performances ahead of us this weekend.”
Much of the same struggles came from the diving side with lone LSU sophomore diver Cassie Weil finishing in 32nd in the 1-meter dive with a score of 243.40.
On the bright side, some Lady Tigers gained valuable experience, building off the struggle of day one.
Kopcso, Oquist and Carter will be swimming in their qualified events Friday and Saturday, while Weil will be performing the 3-meter and platform
dives.
Day two begins today at 11 a.m. with the preliminary events in the 100-yard butterfly and the 100-yard backstroke,
among others.