By Ron Smith
December 9, 2023
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) After competing in the mid-season La Verne Winter Invitational the week before Thanksgiving, Westmont Women's Swimming hosted its annual dual meet with Azusa Pacific on Saturday at the Westmont pool.
 
"We had a pretty fun day," said Westmont's head coach Jill Lin. "This meet is always challenging, coming back from mid-season. We moved this meet a week later after seeing how much we struggled last year after taking Thanksgiving off. It was nice to have an extra week of good hard work and then have this meet.
 
"They have been putting in a lot of good work. We have been focusing on technique, stroke drills and details. They have been making good progress in that area."
 
Azusa Pacific, which features a much deeper team, easily won the event, outscoring the Warriors 176-67.
 
Two Warrior swimmers won races including Willow Pezon who took first place in the 200 yard freestyle in a time of 2:04.32. Westmont swept the top three spots with Olivia Garrison finishing second (2:06.09) and Grace McAnear placing third (2:07.23).
 
Emma Diehl won the 100 yard butterfly for Westmont, touching the wall in a time of 1:02.89. Daisy Marquardt placed third (1:03.88).
 
"The 1000 yard freestyle was great," noted Lin of the event in which Garrison placed second with a time of 11:25.62. "It was fun to have McKenzie Rion in there. She hasn't swum distance at all this year, but we wanted to see what other options we have. She was right on her Westmont best time."
 
Rion finished in fifth place with a time of 11:47.14. Ahead of her in fourth place was Grace McAnear whose time was 11:35.61.
 
"Overall, it was pretty good swimming, despite being tired and having focused more on the sprints and strokes this week. We haven't done a lot of distance training.
 
With Saturday's meet, the Warriors have finished up their fall season competitions.
 
"They have next week of training and then will go home for a couple of weeks. We will come back on January 1st and then the ball is going to be rolling very fast after that."
 
On January 6, the Warriors will host The Master's and Simpson in a tri-meet on Senior Day. The following weekend, Westmont will head north to take on Alaska Fairbanks in another dual meet.
 
On January 27, Westmont will compete against Loyola Marymount then on February 2 and 3, the Warriors will go across town to compete in the UC Santa Barbara Last Chance Meet.

Westmont will finish-up the 2023-24 season with the Pacific Collegiate Swim Conference Championships in Monterey Park.