The purple squad didn’t give gold squad quite the same beating as last season, but it got the bragging rights for another year.
The LSU swimming and diving teams held their annual intrasquad meet on Friday afternoon. The purple won 18 events to win 136-126 over the gold.
New head coaches David Geyer and Doug Shaffer changed the formatting of the meet this season after the purple squad got a 40-point win last year.
The team captains split up and drafted players last year for their teams. This season the coaches took over and choose the teams to make them a little more even.
For the second season in a row, it was a difficult task to make even teams with such young squads. The Lady Tigers have 11 new freshman and the Tigers have six.
Senior Clint Hallum said last week that the intrasquad meet allows the freshmen to showcase their skills in a relaxed environment.
“They’ve got a lot of potential,” Hallum remarked.
A few displayed that potential on Friday.
Freshmen Torrey Bussey and Rainey White both got their first college wins. Bussey won the women’s 200-meter breaststroke and the 200-meter individual medley.
White won the women’s 100-meter butterfly and was part of the first place women’s 200-meter freestyle relay.
“On the women’s side, we saw a couple of freshmen really step up,” new assistant coach Brandy Collins said in a news release. “Torrey Bussey and Rainey White really came through. They followed our leaders like Jane Trepp and Amanda Kendall, who really set the tone for them, and they got out there and raced.”
Setting the tone is old hat for Trepp, a senior who has been voted the Lady Tigers’ most outstanding swimmer two seasons in a row. Trepp edged Bussey in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke by 1/10th of a second, and also won the 50-meter freestyle.
Senior Brook Barnett, sophomore Kendall, sophomore Jana Ruimerman, sophomore Craig Hamilton and junior Martin Jungfleisch also had two wins each.
Rookie assistant coach Lance Asti said the Tigers also got some great performances from their freshman.
Freshman Michael Saco won the men’s 50-meter freestyle over senior Hannes Heyl by half a second, and just came up short to sophomore Andrei Tuomola.
“Michael Saco has been pushed by some of the upperclassmen and guys like Andrei Tuomola, and those two went head-to-head,” Asti said in a news release. “We had some great swims in the individual medley with Clint Hallum and (sophomore) Sean Roddy.”
The diving squad expanded a lot this season, with new freshman divers Kim Harris, Kevin Leong, Sean McKinney and Daniel Helm competing for the first time.
Schaffer said he wanted the divers to have a positive environment for their first competition to get them ready for the regular season.
“Daniel Helm and Sean McKinney did a nice job in their first collegiate meets,” Shaffer said in a news release. “It’s still very early in our season, and we build upon each competition so that we’ll be ready to peak in February and March.”