Greensboro, North Carolina – Eight Cougars from Washington State Women's Swimming take home a gold and bronze medal and the Cougs finish the U.S. Open as champions.
During day one of the meet 800 free Relay dream team of Dori Hathazi, Kirsten de Goede, Angela Di Palo, and Noelle Harvey touched the wall at 8:25.21 to place first and begin the meet with a gold medal.
The Cougs came full circle on their final day at the U.S. Open when the 400-free relay team of Hailey Grotte, de Goede, Di Palo, and Harvey took the podium to earn bronze. The 400-free team earned third place and clocked in t 3:48.22-time swimming 1.39 behind the University of Tennessee and 4.14 ahead of the University of Arkansas.
The Cougars followed the momentum from Wednesday and during day two the 400-medley team of Hathazi, Emily Lundgren, Anna Rauccholz, and Di Palo clinched fourth at 4:14.36, ahead of the University of Arkansas and Swim Mac Carolina Club team.
Gold medalist recipient Dori Hathazi kicked off day three-morning preliminaries in the 100-fly and earned a spot in the evening's "B" final. During Saturday's 200 fly preliminaries, Hathazi climbed into fifth place at 2.14.52 to represent the Cougs in the evening A finals.
Italian native Di Palo swam strongly in Saturday's 100 free heat preliminary to guide the way for the Cougs in the evening's "C" finals. During the evening final she climbed into third place within the "C" block as she touched the wall at 56.88. Freshman Lundgren also claimed a spot in the "C" finals during the 200 breast preliminaries and represented the Cougs as she took second place with a time of 2:34.18.
Coming out of a record-breaking last meet at the Art Adamson Invite the Cougs qualified for the U.S. Open and headed to Greensboro a week later. "We are very proud of how the girls competed this week in Greensboro. It's always challenging competing in a long course in the middle of a short course season, but the team really stayed tough throughout the week and put together some great swims," Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator Kate Moore said.
The crew of de Goede, Hathazi, Lundgren, Rauccholz, Grotte, Alexandra Vartianinen, Harvey, and Di Palo represents the largest group WSU has sent to a National Meet in history.
"I believe it's our biggest group to head out to a National Meet which is something I'm proud of and excited to build upon," Head Coach Matt Leach said.
