There is room for improvement for the H20 Frogs following their first two meets against Mountain West Conference opponents, said head coach Richard Sybesma.Thursday, the women faced the Colorado State Rams, and Saturday, both the men’s and women’s teams took on the BYU Cougars.
The H20 Frogs lost by 12 points to the Rams on Wednesday, while the men’s and women’s teams lost by a combined total of 134 to the Cougars on Saturday.
Despite the two losses, the women’s team still turned in quality performances from senior sprinter Erica Tate and freshman diver Jennifer Ferguson, Sybesma said.
“Practice this week hasn’t been going very well,” Ferguson said. “I was glad I could pull it together at the meet.”
Ferguson won both the one-meter and three-meter diving events on Thursday and Saturday, while Tate scored two victories Thursday in the 50-yard freestyle, 100 freestyle and another victory in Saturday’s 50 freestyle.
Tate said the two meets with only one day to train in between may have impacted the performance.
“For the second day of racing (this week), it went well overall,” Tate said. “We’ll look at where we need to go from here.”
The men’s team took to competition Saturday where it showed power in the sprints as well as the distance categories, said senior Alejandro Gomez.
Gomez led the distance swimmers and had a second-place finish in the 1,000 freestyle and third-place showing in the 500 freestyle.
“I felt good, and we had some good races,” Gomez said.
Sophomore diver R.J. Hesselberg had a third-place performance in the one-meter dive and followed it up by finishing second in the three-meter springboard competition giving TCU seven points for his efforts.
Though the results of both meets had TCU on the losing end, the meets were a benchmark for improvement going into conference competition, Sybesma said.
“We need for people to step up with them (top swimmers from TCU),” Sybesma said. “If we do that, we’ll be tough to beat in conference.”
Gomez said Colorado State and BYU have an edge against their Mountain West competition by being able to train at higher altitudes.
“It helps open our minds up for what to look for in conference,” Gomez said. “And what to work on during training.”
The H20 Frogs will return to action Thursday in a three-team meet in Colorado Springs, Colo., against the Air Force Falcons and the New Mexico State Aggies.
